Walt Whitman and Herman Melville

Walt Whitman and Herman Melville are both iconic, legendary American authors with great reputations and writing portfolios, but their works are vastly different in tone, style, theme and characterization. In this paper, Whitman's story ("Crossing Brooklyn Ferry") and Herman Melville's "Bartleby, The Scrivener" -- both describing New York City and its citizens -- are reviewed and critiqued, and the interesting contrasts are noted in this investigation.

The Two Pieces of Literature in Comparison

First of all, Melville uses an unnamed narrator in his story, a man that seems very reasonable and uncomplicated (although easily frustrated when confronted with someone he doesn't understand), and Whitman's writing is first person. Readers are very sure who Whitman is and recognize his lines that are even and straightforward and interesting. For Melville's story, readers can assume that Melville has made this story entirely from whole cloth. But the narrator is very interesting and obviously well spoken. Whitman is offering readers narrative that reads more like poetry, with line after line having its own theme, and yet connected to the line preceding and the line following each line.

In Whitman's tale, readers are immediately located on the ferry with the author and readers are given characterizations of the people, descriptions of the water, the sun, the sea birds and the feel of being on the boat crossing the wide river. The Melville tale, also about New York City, takes pains to try and learn about Bartleby, but the young writer refuses to give much of anything of substance to the "elderly man" and it frustrates the narrator. What "reasonable objection" could Bartleby possibly have for not sharing something about his life? The refusal of Bartleby to give forth personal information is "unprecedented" in the narrator's mind. On the other hand, the narrator hasn't done a very good job getting into Bartleby's head; the narrator has spend a lifetime pushing things out of his consciousness that are not pleasant or comfortable, and hence the narrator is set in his ways and now that he comes face-to-face with a challenge he cannot solve, he is very frustrated and finds himself out of sorts. While all this is going on, Walt Whitman is totally (or almost totally) in sync with the people on the ferry. "Just as you feel when you look on the river and sky, so I felt," he writes. "Just as you are refres'd by the gladness of the river and the bright flow, I was refresh'd."

Basically the Melville story is lengthy and a bit tedious for a young reader, while Whitman's story has interest packed into just about every line. Melville's narrator is begging Bartleby to come forward with some information; obviously the narrator doesn't like mysteries and his whole career on Wall Street he has never asked something simple of another person and been turned down. He hates the constant refrain of Bartleby, "I would prefer not to." He begs and cajoles and all of this is out of character for him, because as was pointed out earlier, he is use to having people respond to him. "Bartleby, never mind, then, about revealing your history; but let me entreat you, as a friend, to comply as far as may be with the usages of this office. Say now you will help to examine papers to-morrow or the next day: in short, say now that in a day or two you will begin to be a tittle reasonable -- say so, Bartleby," the narrator asks. But Bartleby responds as he always does: "At present, I would prefer not to be a little reasonable." This part of the story leads the reader to think that Melville is creating a theme within that recalcitrance of Bartleby: Melville wants the reader to be wholly curious about what gives with Bartleby, it must be part of the main theme of the story, and it also helps define the character of the narrator, to keep pressing for information that is not forthcoming. Meanwhile Walt Whitman knows intimately everything he sees from the ferry; there are no mysteries or conundrums in his narrative because he knows the masts of the ships, he loves the white sails of schooners and sloops, the steamers, the "scallop-edged waves in the twilight" and on the "neighboring shore the fires from the foundry chimneys burning high and glaringly into the night," which fascinates him.

Whitman uses simile effectively ("The glories strung like beads on my smallest sights and hearings") and uses metaphors effectively to link himself with others that have crossed the river in the past ("The dark threw its patches down upon me also…") because he certainly wasn't and isn't perfect at all so he had a metaphor for that ("I too knitted the old knot of contrariety…"). Melville's narrator, whose work is brilliant but a bit tedious, can slip personification, a metaphor and a simile into the same sentence for effect. For example, talking about Turkey, a previous employee ("a temperate young man") the narrator explains that "…nature herself seemed to have been his vintner, and at his birth charged him so thoroughly with an irritable, brandy-like disposition, that all subsequent potations were needless." Melville's narrator seems to have an obsession to either understand Bartleby, or at least be able to rationalize the young man's behavior, because prior to Bartleby's appearance in the shop the narrator had an even keeled life and everything was out on the table. No mysteries, just the day-to-day routine, and then this young many comes alone to stir things up and make the narrator a frustrated supervisor. Whitman meanwhile is looking back on his life, as if to make sure he fully understands where he was and why he is where he is now. "The wolf, the snake, the hog, not wanting in me, the cheating look, the frivolous word, the adulterous wish, not wanting." Readers don't know anything about the Melville narrator aside from his response to Bartleby and to the others working for him in the shop. The mysteries for Melville's narrator go further than just why Bartleby won't participate fully with his boss; in fact, using another metaphor, the narrator says that Bartleby "was a perpetual sentry in the corner."