Bartleby, the Scrivener

Use these questions or activities to help gauge students’ familiarity with and spark their interest in the context of the work, giving them an entry point into the text itself.

Short Answer

1. List 3-5 situations in which an individual might feel alienated or isolated. Generally, what are some common ways these feelings affect a person?

Teaching Suggestion: Teaching this topic can be a great way to foster empathy and understanding among students, as well as to help them develop their personal writing and reflection skills. After presenting the prompt, it might be helpful to discuss the concepts of alienation and isolation in a broad sense. This could include definitions, examples from literature or history, and a discussion of the potential impacts of these experiences. You might choose to connect to The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka or Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck.

• “Understanding Alienation and Social Alienation” from ThoughtCo. provides an overview of Karl Marx’s analysis of alienation within a capitalist society, which is relevant to Melville’s implied critique of capitalism in “Bartleby, the Scrivener.”
• “The Impact of Social Isolation on Mental Health” from Verywell Mind describes the signs and risks of social isolation.

2. What are some examples of situations where individuals are expected to conform to certain rules or norms? What are the potential consequences of nonconformity?