Isolation in Bartleby, The Scrivener and The Zoo Story Essay Example

Isolation in Bartleby, The Scrivener and The Zoo Story Essay Example Isolation in Bartleby, The Scrivener and The Zoo Story Essay Isolation in Bartleby, The Scrivener and The Zoo Story Essay Essay Topic: Bartleby the Scrivener Bartleby the Scrivener is a literary missive all throughout portraying the downward spiral of a young man’s dance with the perilous consequences of a life lived lonesomely. Bartleby, a Wall Street merchant and prisoner to industrious times, portrays the doppelganger of life and progression of an increasingly technological world in which the human individual is no longer able to possess the most basic of sentimental functions, lacking altogether the ability to acquire personal contact, his character having diminished into a dystopia of capitalistic advances and familial deterioration. In much the same way, The Zoo Story follows an unwieldy middle-aged man as the audience is brought along to witness a most unfortunate demise at the hands of an individual’s inability to adapt to the bustling 50s as he continues to be challenged by the network of the societal dynamics of urban repression. Having not only led to Jerry’s long forlorn death, the exponential differences between one’s social class and life experience he and each of his fellow denizens have continued to experience the difficulties of, continue to counteract a trying concept in a man’s final dying plea for human interaction and compassion. Bartleby, The Scrivener serves as a social commentary that reflects the loss of intimacy in the employer-employee relationship as a result of the nation’s shift from â€Å"the old order of face-to-face contacts and mutual obligations† â€Å" to the impersonal calculus of the market† (Melville 134). All throughout, Bartleby’s protests to conformity appear to be riddled and haunted by his demeaning presence in an agrarian workplace, his disconnectedness with reality and rebellious misconduct symbolizing a gaunt minority’s stubborn attitude towards society’s unavoidable ability of forcing all to conform to its norms. In much the same way, Albee introduces his audience to Jerry, an unconventional individual whose ideas about what it