Firstly, I would like to allot a moment of silence for you to process the horror that is the title to this blog. * * Okay, that seems sufficient. Boswell's London Journal was an absolutely infuriating piece of writing. I don't mean this in the sense of style or writing in general, but I hate Boswell as a character. In the beginning, Boswell states that he shall omit any behavior that seems unbecoming; is he sure? As the story progresses, Boswell does one skeevy thing after the other and doesn't seem to be bothered by his actions at all. While this would seem honest and raw as someone is admitting their faults, it is made quite clear that Boswell doesn't think of these as faults. He essentially thinks that he can do no wrong. If Boswell were around today, he would probably be one of those people that looks at a rape accusation and says "boys will be boys". In my opinion, Boswell needed a strong slap across the face. He was a terrible person from start to finish and refused to take responsibility for his actions. Go die, Boswell. Oh wait, you already did.
Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" is secretly about Cotton-Eyed Joe. We often talk about how poems resemble songs, so why can't the plots of short stories do the same? In the case of "Bartleby", I think that he as a person can easily be likened to our dear old pal CE Joe. We don't know where he came from, we don't know where he went (in the biblical sense). He has an air of mystery about him. He messes with the narrator's personal life. I know that this is silly, but I think it's fun to relate things that you don't necessarily enjoy to things that you do. If anyone can think of other parallels between the two, please feel free to comment them below.
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