Blackness and Gothic depictions in American Literature

American writers have expressed their political and social views through their writing by attempting to establish a voice separate from Britain’s. Their fear of individual and national failure and their thirst for power consumes them and is evident in their writing. Washington Irving and Herman Melville involve the occupation of lawyers and Justices to bring in a patriotic element to influence residents of the young country as a way to share their concerns and inspire ambition. Their usage of metaphors and metonymy subtly convey a message of hope to white residents while, deflating the optimism of the soon to be freed slaves. This essay will prove that a critical reading of Melville’s â€Å"Bartleby, the Scrivener,† and Irving’s â€Å"The Legend of†¦show more content†¦Isolation is one of the central themes of â€Å"Bartleby, the Scrivener,† and is highlighted by the motif of the wall. The office, in which the story is placed, is located i n a chamber suite named, â€Å"No. ⎠¯ Wall-street† (5). Society and the narrator isolate Bartleby by enclosing him behind walls. The narrator does this by the putting up a â€Å"high green folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from my sight† (17) when he first joins the office staff. He establishes a dichotomous relationship with Bartleby to emphasize his superiority by physically putting up the wall. Bartleby is isolated by society when he is locked up in the alms-house and is â€Å"standing all alone in the quietest of the yards, his face towards a high wall† (218). Melville further demonstrates the seclusion of Bartleby by having the narrator place him at a desk in front of the window with â€Å"an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade† (5). Bartleby is denied all escape from his work with the view of the wall: â€Å"I placed his desk close up to a small side-window in that part of the room, a window which†¦commanded at present no view at all† (17). The narrator refers to the wall as a â€Å"dead-wall† (92, 126, 166) several times throughout the story. The trance, which Bartleby appears to be in, while gazing at the wall, creates an alternateShow MoreRelatedThe Whiteness of the Veil: Color and the veil in Hawthorne’s The Minister’s Black Veil and The Blithedale Romance1578 Words   |  6 Pagesand notes the repeated emphasis on the blackness of Father Hooper’s veil and the pallor as a reaction to it. â€Å"The design of this tale,† he asserts, â€Å"is one in which repeated patterns of light, then blackness, then whiteness meaningfully occur† (Blair 76). Similarly, Hawthorne’s novel The Blithedale Romance employs chiaroscuro for its characters, symbols and the veil motif in particular. Blair does not go further in his discussion of whiteness and blackness in â€Å"The Minister’s Black Veil† in rela tionRead More Religion as a Gothic Element in American Romanticism Essay1707 Words   |  7 PagesReligion as a Gothic Element in American Romanticism American Romanticism can be strongly defined through its use of Gothic elements. Webster’s defines gothic as of or relating to a style of fiction characterized by the use of desolate or remote settings and macabre, mysterious, or violent incidents (529). Pre-American Romantic writers, such as Anne Bradstreet and Jonathan Edwards, do not tend towards the gothic in their writings of religion and religious elements. Although God is mysterious