Many of Herman Melville and Edgar Allen Poe's literary works of the
nineteenth century are still widely regarded today as literary classics,
not only because of the quality of their literature, but also because of
the original writing and story techniques used by Melville and Poe. In fact,
many of the unprecedented styles used by Poe and Melville are now widely
considered the norm in writing quality literature. One example of this is
the single-effect theory first seen in Edgar Allen Poe's short story, "The
Fall of the House of Usher," in which Poe places strict emphasis on word
choice in order to correlate each word with the grim appearance of Roderick
Usher's house. Nowadays, this is considered common practice for one
aspiring to write a vivid story in which the details have form a type of
continuity as a whole.

As opposed to Poe's emphasis on content, Melville is known by many
as a master of character studies which, in turn, lead to great drama in
many cases of his works. Such is evident in two of better known works, Moby
Dick, and Billy Budd, where we are introduced to several fascinating
character that add to the excitement and energy of the story.

Both Poe's single-effect theory and Melville's exceptional
character development in the short stories, "The Cask of Amontillado," and
"Bartelby the Scrivener," written by Poe and Melville respectively. This
paper will not only compare the plot and structure of these two stories,
but will also argue that these authors use distinct styles in approaching
their stories to achieve essentially the same affect on the reader of a
well developed character study of two quirky main characters.

Poe writes the story, "The Cask of Amontillado," from the
perspective of Montresor, who vows revenge against Fortunato in an effort
to support his time-honored family motto: "Nemo me impune lacessit," or "No
one assails me with impunity." (No one can attack me without being
punished). Poe does not intend for the reader to sympathize with Montresor
because he has been wronged by Fortunato, but rather to judge him. Telling
the story from Montresor's point of view intensifies the effect of moral
shock and horror. Once again, the reader is invited (as was the case in
"The Tell-Tale Heart") to delve into the inner workings of a sinister mind.

Such is evident from the first paragraph of the story: "The
thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he
ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge....At length I would be avenged; this
was a point definitely settled....I must not only punish, but punish with
impunity." Here, from the very beginning of the story, we see Montressor
begin to develop the perfect plan of retribution. This first paragraph also
serves as evidence to support our earlier claim of Poe's use of the single-
effect theory. Rather than slowly easing the reader into his story, Poe has,
instead, forced the reader to hit the proverbial ground running. Poe's word
choice also draws us into the mood of this story, as he plants these
subconscious seeds with the dictum, "injuries," "insult," "revenge," and
"punish."

After we have inferred that the story is being told in the first
person perspective from Montressor's viewpoint, Poe, once again, wastes no
time in moving along the story. Around dusk one evening during the carnival
season, Montresor encounters his friend Fortunato, who "...accosted [him]
with excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much." Fortunato is wearing
the costume of a court jester including a "...conical cap and bells."
Montresor proclaims how glad he is to encounter Fortunato since he has just
purchased a large cask of "...what passes for Amontillado [a variety of dry
sherry]," but he has his doubts about its authenticity. Fortunato also has
doubts. "How?" said Fortunato. "Amontillado?Impossible! And in the middle
of the carnival!" Eventually, Montressor invites Fortunato down to a damp
wine cellar to evaluate the validity of the Amontillado. As the two men
walk down the long, winding staircase to cellar, we become aware of the
dramatic irony that Poe has presented to us. In effect, Montressor is
leading Fortunato all the way down to what will become Fortunato's hell
where he will die. We can consider this a type of dramatic irony because we
know more than Fortunato does about what will happen to him. From the first
paragraph of Montressor's narration, we know that Montressor will somehow
exact revenge on Fortunato, but Fortunato does not.

This also draws us back to the irony in our initial introduction to
Fortunato, as he is essentially wearing a clown's costume. This is
certainly ironic, as the clown is also associated with a fool, or one who
is the subject of someone else's joke. Another glaring irony occurs in
Montressor's first line of dialogue to Fortunato, "My dear Fortunato, you
are luckily met." Not only can we see here that Poe's choice of character
name selection is irony, as "Fortunato," which is the Italian word for
fortunate, ends up dead in this story, but we also see that in Montressor's
dialogue when he says that Fortunato is "luckily met."

This story also takes us into the mind of a murderer, and
Montressor can be deemed both the protagonist and antagonist in his
execution of a pre-meditated murder. Montresor tries to convince the reader
that his intentions are honorable in an effort to uphold his family motto.
"Nemo me impune lacessit" is also the national motto of Scotland. Kenneth
Silverman, in his book Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance,
makes reference to the fact that it is not an accident or similarity that
Poe chooses this particular motto. It is one that would remind Poe of
another Scotsman, John Allan, his foster father. Allan, "much resembled
Fortunato in being a man 'rich, respected, admired, beloved,' interested in
wines, and a member of the Masons." Silverman continues by saying that even
the Allan name can be seen as an anagram in Amontillado (Silverman 317).
Thus, Poe challenges the reader not to get too caught up in Montressor's
complex, because we might start to accept his relatively irrational
perception of revenge. We, as readers, must identify and attempt to
understand this quirky/sociopathic character of Montressor only up to a
certain point.

Similiarly to Poe, Melville introduces us to a quirky character as
well, although Bartleby is not the not the narrator, nor the murderer that
Montressor is. Starting with the narrator's claim that he is going to
relate a story about Bartleby, "the strangest [scrivener] I ever saw or
heard of," Melville begins a juxtaposition where everything but Bartleby is
discussed in some detail. The resulting circumvention causes Bartleby to be
discussed more as a causal force than as a human. While the narrator admits
he has limited information about Bartleby, he makes little effort
throughout the course of the story to discover anything about him. He
appears oblivious to Bartleby's slow deterioration from that of a mournful
soul to a mechanistic being whose relevance has ended. Rather, he spends
the majority of the time dwelling on how Bartleby's severely limited but
profound intercourse with the inhabitants of the office greatly affects the
narrator's own life.

To the narrator, Bartleby is much less a real man than an object of
curiosity. He is so taken with Bartleby's limited responses, mostly
containing some variation of the word "prefer," that he never contemplates
what human experience could place a man in such a position As Greg Hyzak
argues on the internet, "the scrivener's unwillingness to 'prefer' to do
anything the owner wished of him forced the owner to leave him by changing
offices. There is a lot of play on the word 'prefer' throughout the story.
Because of Bartleby's constant use of the word, the narrator seems to sense
it is becoming a part of both him and his colleagues vocabulary which h
seems to be a turn for the worse."

This is demonstrated by the narrator passing up each opportunity to
query a little further into the psyche of Bartleby. On the Sunday when he
caught Bartleby locked within his chambers, the narrator does not stake out
the doorway in an attempt to see if Bartleby was alone or with company. He
instead obeys Bartleby's wish that he walk around the block several times.
For a lawyer, the narrator spends a tremendous amount of time analyzing his
own being and precious little time evaluating Bartleby.

There are three times in the story that the narrator appears to try
and aid Bartleby. The first is when he visits him in the stairwell and
attempts to offer alternate work options. The second is when he pays the
prison guard a little silver to provide Bartleby with edible food. The
final incidence is when he stops by the jail to see Bartleby only to find
him newly dead. While those limited efforts could be construed as a genuine
effort to help, as the narrator most likely told himself, they were all
much too little and much too late. Throughout the story, when Bartleby
refuses to proof copy or simply stands for hours looking blankly at the
brick wall, the narrator does nothing except solicit statements from his
other office workers that Bartleby's behavior is not normal or even
tolerable. He takes no action except engaging Bartleby in a few verbal
exchanges and then moves his office to avoid the problem altogether.

It is through the narrator's inaction that Melville poses the
question of how much responsibility a human should have for his fellow man
in such a dehumanizing and mechanistic era. It is clear through the tone of
the story that the author believes the narrator had a larger duty to aid
Bartleby than he exhibited. The tragic nature of the story's end, where the
narrator comes back to visit Bartleby a mere twenty minutes after he has
passed on, brings closure to Melville's point that our individual
responsibility to our fellow man cannot be taken lightly or just
occasionally on a whim when it might seem convenient.

Therefore, we can conclude that both Poe and Melville have used
similar as well as distinct techniques and writing styles to essentially
accomplish the same goal of writing a story about off-beat, fascinating and
troubled main characters. Considering both "The Cask of Amontillado," and
"Bartleby the Scrivener" are short stories, a good character study is no
small achievement, as developing these characters, whether it be through
the word choice and irony that Poe uses, or the symbols and extended
metaphors of Melville, takes a certain talent that has shown us how both of
these writers' works have passed the test of time.



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