Compare And Contrast Bartleby The Scrivener

“A&P” by John Updike and “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville both provide an interesting story that has a specific view on the relationship between an individual and society. Sammy and Bartleby’s feelings in each story provide evidence that show that they have to make a decision that will deviate themselves from societal expectations.
The main character is Sammy who is an employee at A & P and does not like his job. He is an adolescent, who lives with his parents and enjoys making them proud. Sammy does not enjoy the customers and their boring personalities. He states, “I bet you could set off dynamite in an A & P and the people would by and large keep reaching and checking oatmeal off their lists and muttering, let me see, there …show more content…
The story of Bartleby is a little more complicated because we really don’t hear anything from his own words and we are being told about him through a narrator. In Bartleby the narrator’s descriptions of his employees shows, he has more of an interest in these people personally and not just as a boss. He describes each one from their ages to what they eat and when it is the best time of the day to get the most work out of them. He shows interest in his employees by stating how the nicknames complimented their personality. On the other hand Lengel, the boss in A & P, doesn’t seem to have much of an interest in his employees. He only talks to them to point out something if he feels they did wrong. Like when Sammy says he quits in protest of how Lengel treated the girls and Lengel says, “I don’t think you know what you’re saying” and then Lengel says, “Sammy, you don’t want to do this to your Mom and Dad”. There is a difference between the two stories how a boss’s relationship with his employees can make a difference in society. In Bartleby, the other employees made more of an effort to work. Bartleby refused to leave because I think probably because his boss had some compassion for