melville
https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2701/2701-h/2701-h.htm#link2HCH0133
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51865/art-56d22fe510c67
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51931/the-apparition-56d23004281e0
Choose one question about Melville’s poetry from the list below. Be sure to use MLA correctly by giving the line number(s) of a poem.
1. Compare one of Melville’s assigned poems to one of Dickinson’s assigned poems in content and style.
2. Compare and contrast the tone (the author’s attitude towards his subject), mood (feeling created by the poet for the reader), and style used by Melville in writing “The Apparition” and “Art.”
3. Compare any poem of Whitman’s to either of Melville’s assigned poems in content and style.
AND
Choose one question about Melville’s prose from the list below. Be sure to use MLA correctly giving the page or paragraph number of any textual support (quotes).
1. Using Freytag’s Pyramid, discuss “Bartleby the Scrivener.”
2. Eating and food imagery is prominent in Melville’s story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” In what ways does this set of images symbolically reinforce the story’s themes? Are there other images that symbolically reinforce the story’s themes?
3. Does Melville create a hero figure in his short story? Who is the hero and what defines the character as such? How would this hero compare to your image of the hero figure today?
4. What does the subtitle to “Bartleby” suggest? What is the significance of Wall Street and the walls in the story?
5. How do the descriptions of Turkey, Nipper, and Ginger Nut establish the mood of the story? What do they suggest about the narrator?
6. Describe one of the conflicts (man versus man, man versus himself, man versus nature, man versus fate, man versus society) in chapter 135 of Moby Dick and discuss how Melville develops the character of one of the characters described in that conflict.
7. What ethic does Melville implicitly oppose to the ethic of Wall Street?
8. Describe Melville’s style and use of diction to aid the reader of chapter 135 of Moby Dick.
10. In what way(s) does “Bartleby” resemble Henry David Thoreau’s “Resistance to Civil Government”?
