Comparing Bartleby The Scrivener 'And A White Heron'

Issue of Identity. Loss of Identity in American Literature.

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others” Mahatma Gandhi
In this essay I will discuss the issue of identity in two different Short stories: “Bartleby the Scrivener” by Herman Meville and “ A white Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewett.
The period between the Civil War in America and the outbreak of the Great War in Europe in 1914 may be turned in the history of prose fiction the Era of the Short Story. Writers from that period discovered how to exploit the American past and the American landscape, their works became powerful instruments for defining and developing
the national personality. The desire for self-identity on American history and culture may have taken its pelicular forms precisely because it does not ground the subject at all, but ungrounds it.
The quest for identity is considered to be the universal theme in literature. Texts from all over the world reflect this focus, as male and female explore both external and internal worlds in order to form themselves. The problem of identity is well represented in the American Short story. As the writers deal with fragments of life, they try to reveal as much of the mistery of existence as possible .
If we take a look at Herman Meville’s shor story “Bartleby the Scrivener” we will ask ourselves for sure : How much individuality is too much individuality? Meville is able to capture, in his work, the monotonous day to day work of a middle class employee of the 19th century, it portrays the emotional detachment and depression many cubical workers felt. We see everything through the eyes of Bartleby the employer, who is directly affected by the scriveners inaction and through this perspective, we quickly identify with the conflicted feelings of the Narrator.
At the beginning, everything seems normal, Bartleby shows up at an already estabilished office and immediately gets to work. Nothing is weird at him until one day when he refuses point –blank to obey a simple order, he continues to ‘prefer not to “ do anything but copy documents, even when the smallest favors are asked from him. Eventually, Bartleby just stops working at all and the lawyer fiers him but he prefers not to leave the building and continues to live there as a way of protest upon his treatment as individual. From now on his loss of identity starts!
When Bartleby just won’t leave, the lawyer picks up and moves his whole practice to another building.
The suspense and confusion builds as we learn that Bartleby remains at the office, even when its occupants leave, he continues his wall-staring, resistant behavior even when a new law practice moves in. at one moment Bartleby is taken to prison and he doesen’t even put up a fight when the police took him. Bartleby is presented as a victim of society.
In the end Bartleby refuses to eat and subsequently starves to death on prison, he rejects normal human interaction. By just preferring not to live anylonger, Bartleby announces his individuality in an ultimately fatal, dramatic way: if he cannot live as he “prefers” to, he doesen’t want to live at all. The closure statement : “ Ah Bartleby! Ah, humanity!” transforms this small story about one strange man in one about all of humanity.
The story provides an exploration into such universal issues of the human experience as alienation, passivity, nonconformity and psychological imprisonement. Bartleby has become a robotic copist in a world surrounded by walls: he has lost his identity because of the environement, because of non-comunication. He is a victim of society for whom there can’t be salvation. Loss of identity, lack of communication- led him to death. Meville uses Bartleby to represent the American ideal of freedom of choice then creates tension through restriction of that
choice.
If we look at “A White Heron” by Sarah Orne Jewette we also discover a loss of identity, loss of innocence. The haunter destroys Sylvia’s boundary of innocence like society destroyed Bartleby desire to interact with other people. Both of the protagonists had to make a choice.“A White Heron” is fundamentally about a choice: specifically the choice of a young girl (Sylvia) to retain her innocence despite the possible material and emotional benefits of giving it up.
Sylvia changes from a shy little girl into a young adult during the course of the story. At the beginning of the story, her greatest pleasure is “to hide herself among the huckleberry bushes”. When the young hunter comes, Sylvia is attracted to him, both because he is a young man and because he is offering her a great deal of money in exchange of the white heron. However, during the effort to climb the old pine tree, Sylvia experiences a transformation. At first, Sylvia is described as “ alittle girl” and “ small and silly Sylvia”. As she begins her journey up the tree, she is described as a “spark of human spirit”. Finally as she reaches the top of the tree, she is called a “pal star” and stands “triumphant”. To show her growth, she can now look down and her perspective changes to include the ocean and distant farms. She has discovered “it was a vast and awesome world”. Because of her journey she is able to resist to the hunter who only wants to kill the white heron for a “specimen”.
Through her transformation, Sylvia loses her innocence, her identity.
The entire story Sylvia is in a struggle between nature and civilization. In fact is all about telling or not telling the secret: if she tells it, she will no longer be a part of the nature; if she doesn’t, it is almost of no importance as she cannot stop time and the changing of things. She chooses a third option: to keep silence, but by doing that , she remains outside time, outside history.
The end of the story is representative for her loss of identity, she is “ this lonely country girl”, she belongs to neither of the worlds. Sylvia chooses interaction with the nature instead of human interaction as Bartleby chooses to die in “Bartleby the Scrivener” and get rid of all human contact . The protagonists from these two short stories are defined by their final decisions!
As a conclusion I can say that these two writers understood that at the heart of human experience lies an essential yearning for self-definition and self-understanding. Developing a conception of who we are, for what purpose we exist, and how we should live our lives is a basic impulse of human consciousness. The direction of human affairs is inextricably connected to the evolution of our identity. For it is from our identity that intention, action, and social development flow. Identity determines how we see ourselves and conceive our position in the world, how others see or classify us, and how we choose to engage with those around
us.

Bibliography:
Quest for identity in American Literature- Roxana Mihalache ( Essay)