{"id":1447,"date":"2010-03-05T18:01:20","date_gmt":"2010-03-05T22:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=1447"},"modified":"2010-03-05T18:01:20","modified_gmt":"2010-03-05T22:01:20","slug":"ishmael-in-moby-dick-and-the-elderly-lawyer-in-%e2%80%9cbartleby-the-scrivener%e2%80%9d-a-comparison-of-initial-self-presentation-of-the-narrators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=1447","title":{"rendered":"Ishmael in Moby Dick and the elderly lawyer in \u201cBartleby the Scrivener:\u201d A comparison of initial self-presentation of the narrators"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Both Herman Melville\u2019s novel, <em>Moby Dick<\/em>, and his short story, \u201cBartleby the Scrivener\u201d open with the narrators presenting themselves to the reader. <em>Moby Dick<\/em> begins with the direct phrase \u201cCall me Ishmael\u201d (Melville, 1). This is truly a command, in a sense, and it serves to draw the readers in without giving them a choice. The phrase also causes the reader to question the narrator\u2019s reliability: <em>is his name really Ishmael, or is he just telling us to call him that?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cBartleby the Scrivener,\u201d on the other hand, opens with the phrase, \u201cI am a rather elderly man\u201d (Melville, 1). This phrase does not grab the reader in quite as much, as it is not a command, and the description of the narrator is average and somewhat dull. His reliability as a narrator seems to be fairly stable \u2013 he presents himself in a steady, credible manner.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In the opening of <em>Moby Dick<\/em>, Ishmael dives right into a description of himself, first going back to several years earlier in his life. He then describes his emotions and proceeds to state what these emotions mean he must do \u2013 \u201cget to sea\u201d (Melville, 1).<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The elderly lawyer in \u201cBartleby the Scrivener\u201d takes a different approach. After his initial identification, he does not discuss himself, but others. The only emotions he mentions are also those of others. Towards the end of the first paragraph, he begins to narrow his focus to the scrivener Bartleby, taking the attention away from himself. However, in the next paragraphs, he describes himself. His description is, again, very credible \u2013 he describes himself as unambitious, yet as being fond of money.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In Moby Dick, Ishmael proceeds to speak directly to the reader using second person, and describes the initial setting of the novel.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The self-presentations of the narrators that occur in the beginning of both the novel and the short story serve to instill different \u201cmoods\u201d in the readers of what to expect and what to be wary of in those that lead them through the plot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0Both Herman Melville\u2019s novel, Moby Dick, and his short story, \u201cBartleby the Scrivener\u201d open with the narrators presenting themselves to the reader. Moby Dick begins with the direct phrase \u201cCall me Ishmael\u201d (Melville, 1). This is truly a command, in a sense, and it serves to draw the readers in without giving [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1447","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1447"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1448,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1447\/revisions\/1448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1447"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1447"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1447"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}