Faust and Bartleyby

Introduction
The plays on Faust and Bartleyby are similar in some ways and they as well differ in some other ways. Their plot and flow are the same and they make the reader read on more or desire to know more about the story hence the desire to read the play/ narration to the end. The plots are the same and the narrations flow smoothly bringing out the impression of the narrators. The narrators seem to understand the characters very well and this make it possible for the main characters to deal with their employees in the right ways and according to their needs. Both narrations reflect the free will of the characters that are involved in the play with the characters at some points requiring isolation so that they may be able to deal with the issues affecting them.
Compare and contrast Bartleyby and Faust
Both Faust and Bartleyby are the narrators and the main characters of the two plays. They also use two main characters in the development of their play. Faust's uses characters like Mephistopheles and Gretchen. Faust may be used to describe ones own destruction, ones thirst for knowledge that cannot be dealt satisfied or ones deal with the devil. He defines human beings as people whose thirst for acquiring more knowledge and cannot be quenched by what they obtain but the more they acquire the more they desire more knowledge.
Due to the limited knowledge that he had been able to acquire, he attracted the devils attention who wished to assist him until the point that he would acquired all the happiness that any human being would desire to have and that meant the time when Mephistopheles would take away his life. That's seemed so pleasing to him such that he thought that time would never come and he accepted the offer (Goethe 1881).
Bartleby was as well a strong creature in how he did things. He also mainly focused on two characters Nippers and Turkey; and Nippers was ill, he had chronic indigestion while Turkey was a drunkard. Their work was very terrible and they worked in the same office. Turkey is usually affected by his disease in the mornings while Nippers is sober at that time and the vice versa happens in the afternoons whereby Turkey is usually somehow okay and Turkey is drunk. This therefore makes them not to do the best jobs because of their states of mind which is mainly affected by illnesses on one hand and drunkenness on the other hand (Melville 1853). In the two plays, the main characters have problems that are hindering them from being effective in their work and they both have difficulties in attaining what they desire.
Both plays have some minor characters in Faust's play; the minor character is Helen of Troy. This has been a personification of beauty, while in Melville's play, the minor character is the office boy whom they refer to as Ginger nut and he gets his name from the kind of business that he does of bringing cakes to these men. In the two stories, the minor characters are therefore not called by their real names but they are given names that suit their prevailing circumstances.
The narrators of the two plays seek for assistance to their problems else where, and Bartleyby hires a young man who was looking forlorn hoping that he would assists in soothing the other characters temperaments (Melville 1853). This is the same strategy that Faust used when he sought for assistance from the devil. The two narrators therefore use the same strategies in search of solutions to their problems.
The first experience with the devil was not as pleasing as he thought because the experience that he went through led him to a very bad relationship with the woman. The family of the woman is finally destroyed by the deceptive ideas that Faust had attained but her family is restored from the frustrations while Faust is not saved from the shame and he suffers the shame alone (Goethe 1881). He is later forgiven together with every other human being. The devil never left him and he together with him ventured the politics world then progresses to other classical gods and at this point, they met with a very beautiful Helen. They fought with these forces and he finally beats them i.e. the powers and forces of nature, he was able to have the happiness that he had been looking for throughout the long time that he had spent. Mephistopheles never succeeded in taking away Faust's soul when he died because Gretchen intervened marking the value of his strive that was not ending.
Bartleyby faces the same frustrations that Faust faced and he decided to live in the office and as a result of the frustrations, he also does less and less work with time. Faust's and Melville's reputations were destroyed at one point in their lives hence faced frustrations as indicated above for the case of Faust. To deal with the frustration, the writer decides to move his business and left Bartleby in the empty office (Melville 1853). As indicated in the story, Faust's frustrations are cleared by the gods who as well forgives the sins of other human beings.
In the two plays, Faust looks for happiness and finds it when he is rescued by Gretchen while in the other play, Bartleyby sees the world as a miserable place or one to be and he prefer to die out of starvation in prison. Faust and Bartley end up dying in different incidents and due to different causes with Bartleyby seeing the world as a miserable place while Faust sees the world as a good place for one to be, a place of happiness. The plays therefore end up in sorrowful moods with the death of Faust and Bartleyby.
The main characters in both plays seem to understand other characters that they work with. They also try to look for solutions to their problems using different ways. The narrator of Bartleyby is very generous and hates conflicts; he gives Bartleyby a chance to continue with his work despite the fact that he was very disobedient. He does not fire Nippers and Turkey who also do not provide the competent services that they are expected to provide and who look so desperate due to their situations of health and drunkard ness accordingly (Melville 1853). He instead tries to look for solution to by employing the forlorn looking man who was very calm so that he would assist in calming the temperaments of his employees. The emotions of the narrators also keep on changing with time with Bartleyby's narrator's motions ranging from revulsion to having mercy for her.

Conclusion
The two stories are both about free will of faults who seems to be looking for happiness using a different method from what Bartleyby used. Fault and Bartleyby both end up dieing with fault having achieved the happiness that he was looking for and Bartleyby having attained the ‘freedom' that he desired. These two dramatic legends are very important today and they are an inspiration to many writers.


References
Goethe 1881, Faust: a tragedy, volume 1, F.A. Brockhaus publishers.
Melville 1853, Bartleby, the Scrivener; 1819-1891: a story of the Wall Street; bibliographic record, retrieved on December 16, 2009 from http://www.bartleby.com/129/ .