Bartleby was basically hired for copying the text but eventually he started refusing the work requested by the lawyer. The story reflects the mental and physical breakdown of the character Bartleby through the eyes of other people. Even as the story progresses and different people come into contact with Bartleby, he remains unchanged. The narrator repeatedly states that “Bartleby did nothing but stand at his window in his dead-wall revery” (Melville 607). This is yet another way that Bartleby’s static character, along with his flat nature, is shown.
Text 2: Title: Catch 22 Author: Joseph Heller Text type: Written (extended) The novel Catch 22 written by Joseph Heller is a story not only about the life of Bombardier Captain John Yossarian and his endeavors to not be killed. But a satire on the inadequacies of bureaucracy, sanity and insanity, the amorality of corporations and most interestingly; the circular, self-contradicting, paradoxical, oxymoronic yet inherently beautiful logic that is Catch 22. Through the third person omniscient perspective, Heller cleverly weaves the story, in non-chronological order. In order to establish all the characters and cleverly intertwines the chapters with free association. For example the first chapter ends with everyone in the hospital ward leaving due to the incredibly obnoxious good natured Texan, except the CID man who had come down with Pneumonia.
What is important is the willingness to look for and notice this undercurrent. It is interesting that the fateful snowball incident of Dunstan’s childhood provides the nucleus of his entire life. In effect, what could have been just another moment in Deptford life possesses an amazing centrality because of the way Dunstan views his life. The plot progresses from this event, in such a way that the moment gains more layers of meaning and relevance as the story continues. In fact, this part of the book is structurally unique from the rest of the Deptford trilogy.
While the book incorporates many different accounts all being woven into one, the most important is the transformation of Ishmael from a week character plagued by the war to a stronger character able to overcome his internal struggle to do what is necessary. From the start of the novel, Ishmael Chamebers is introduced to the reader as the newspaper reporter following the murder trial. Through the course if flashbacks it is learned that Ishmael, Carl and Kabuo all fought on the American side during World War II. Not so incidentally Ishmael is the only one that came back with a wound, one of his arms was
It is usually the author who evokes characters, so it is pointed out that Joe is creating his own story and its truths. Joe is an unreliable, as we sometimes question whether he is going insane rather than it just being Jed, for example when he keeps seeing things in the library. Clarissa asks him “which way this fixation runs” which forces us as readers to revaluate Joe’s reliability as a narrator. Jean Logan is part of the subplot that reflects the main plot. Like Joe, she is in a stressful situation that causes her to doubt the loyalty of her husband, like Joe does with Clarissa.
The first main character is Sergeant J.T. Sanborn. SGT Sanborn is the middle man of the team. He tries to keep things under control. He starts out as a happy joking member of the team and then when his team leader dies in the opening scene of the film he turns to being the serious man that only wants to protect the men in his team from being hurt during the last 38 days that they have left in the sandbox.
Yet the reality of it is that this man is a king of great power whom they will soon bow down to. Another example of how characters can be perceived throughout the novel is shown throughout the journey of the main protagonist, he was also perceived by his appearance as a small, witless, futile and incapable to carry the great burden before him. Yet as the novel heads towards its crucial climax, he completes the task that many people perceive as impossible for him and rose to be the only one capable of such a task. Another Internal representation of perception is a main character who is perceived as a vile and psycho creature. It is later on shown that the story of this creature is a sad one and he is not at all what he is perceived to be.
The heroes he becomes in his many fantasies are courageous, substantial people who take charge and impress everyone around them. However, in reality, he lives a usual life with no excitement and obeys his nagging wife. Walter Mitty is a typical husband in the 1930s. He is suffering from many problems such as emotional and financial issues which lead him to create a different person, the side of him that is the person he wishes he could be, significant, bold, and heroic. The title of this short story, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, confirms that the reader will be involved in Walter Mitty’s “secret life” which is actually his imagination.
To many critics of the novella, the implementation of such words should not have been introduced into this story. However, supporters of Conrad’s Heart of Darkness disagree with that statement and believe that it added emphasis and influence to his work. Such supporters included Edward Crankshaw, who stated that “Conrad provides us with very little critical guidance.” As Edward Crankshaw put it, Conrad “seems to have worked in a state of semi-blindness, calculating as the need arose, crossing his bridges as they came, living, so to speak, from hand to mouth.” So, which side is right, those who support Conrad or those who oppose him? The use of ambiguity in Conrad’s writing provides the reader the choice as to whether or not
His narratee almost becomes a projection of himself and his own values and the real reader very quickly sees through the fact that Stevens cannot see outside his own prejudices and social sphere. Stevens devotes many pages of his narrative (1990:31-35; 113-116) expounding the criteria of The Hayes Society and its regulation of standards among butlers, for this is the standard by which he himself adheres to and by which, he assumes, his readers will discern. As his prejudices are well to the forefront of the novel, the sceptical