Eric Santangelo Hawthorne and Melville In both works, “Bartleby the Scrivener” and The Scarlet Letter, Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne show the unbridgeable gap between human desires and human possibilities and the mixture of good and evil in even the loftiest of human motives. In “Bartleby the Scrivener” by Herman Melville, this idea is shown by how the Lawyer keeps Bartleby as one of his employers, even though Bartleby does not deserve to still be working. In the Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, this idea is shown through Hester and Dimmesdale’s relationship and also through the contrast between the Forest and Town.
In “Bartleby the Scrivener” the Lawyer’s actions, or lack there of, display the unbridgeable gap between human desires and possibilities. When The Lawyer first hired Bartleby, he does great work and listens to all the demands of his employer. Then suddenly Bartleby starts to decline all requests and demands of the Lawyer with four simple words, “ I prefer not to. ” Not fully understanding Bartleby’s change in heart, the Lawyer eventually discovers Bartleby living in the office as if it is his own home. The Lawyer then offers Bartleby his apartment but once again Bartleby declines.
The Lawyer says “turn the man away by an actual thrusting I could not; to drive him away by calling him hard names would not do; calling in the police was an unpleasant idea; and yet, permit him to enjoy his cadaverous triumph over me? —This too I could not think of “(Melville 664). This statement from the Lawyer proves that he does in fact care about Bartleby. Although his human desire wants to get rid of him, the Lawyer does not know a human possibility in which to do so. As a result, the Lawyer changes buildings so that Bartleby becomes the next owner’s problem, despite the evil implications of the act.
The next owner does not take any pity on Bartleby and has him sent to jail. While in jail, the Lawyer displays good intentions by still looking out for Bartleby just as he did before, even going as far to make sure he is fed good food in prison. Bartleby is then visited by the Lawyer, who finds Bartleby lying under a tree dead. The Lawyer then understands that before working for him, Bartleby was employed by the Dead letter company, which makes him wonder if this previous job contributed to the void and disdainfulness that Bartleby displayed.
In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hester reflects a similar concept. Hester is the protagonist in the story and commits the crime of committing adultery with Dimmesdale. She is then punished for her mischievous actions and publicly humiliated on the scaffold. Although the identity of her fellow adulterer is kept a secret throughout most of the book, readers see Hester and Dimmesdale’s human desires cloud their judgment. They both care and love each other and even though they can’t physically be seen together, they still are together spiritually.
The sin that they committed was not only one of love and passion, but also a sin of human desire even though the possibility of them being together forever was not probable. “ The links that united her to the rest of human kind– links of flowers, or silk, or gold, or whatever the material– had all been broken. Here was the iron link of mutual crime, which neither he nor she could break”(Hawthorne 136). This statement displays the notion that they were not linked to society anymore. Their only link was each other, and they maintained this link through their human desires, disregarding whether they were good or evil.
In The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the dichotomy between the Forest and Town shows the unbridgeable gap between human possibilities and human desires. The Forest is seen as a frontier, where anything can happen and anything can exist whether it’s good, freedom, individualism, or even evil. The town, however, is a civilized place where one must follow orders and laws, and a place where human Desires normally do not prosper. The town resembles the evil and the human possibilities meaning that Hester and Dimmesdale’s possibility of being together in the town is not very promising due to how strict and evil that place can be.
Hester and Dimmesdale’s human desires however lead them to the forest where anything can exist including their desires to be together. “Thus they went onward, not boldly but step by step, into the themes that were brooding deepest in their hearts. So long estranged by fate and circumstances, they needed something slight and causal to run before, and throw open the doors of intercourse, so that their real thoughts might be led across the threshold”(Hawthorne 163). This statement reveals the nature of the meeting between Dimmesdale and Hester in the forest, and all the emotions that they have kept locked inside their hearts.
They both know that this meeting could have only occurred in the Forest because their desires cannot be fulfilled in the Town. Both Hawthorne and Melville show the unbridgeable gap between human desires and human possibilities and the mixture of good and evil in even the loftiest of human motives. In “Bartleby the Scrivener”, Melville shows the human desires and human possibilities in the Lawyer’s actions, whether good or evil. In The Scarlet letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne, this idea is shown in two separate ways.
One way being through the use of Hester and her desire driven relationship with Dimmesdale, and the other way by showing the differences and comparisons between the Forest and the Town. These two writers are therefore known for writing in their tragic dimensions. Work Cited Hawthorne, Nathaniel The Scarlet Letter Signet Classics: Four Classic American Novels New York: New American Literature 2007. Melville, Herman. “Bartleby The Scrivener” pg. 642- 675. Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, Eighth Edition. Editors Thomas R. Arp and Greg Johnson
