未命名 4
Refer to "Bartleby, the
Scrivener"
A
contemporary view of Wall Street
"My chambers were up the stairs at No.--Wall Street."
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Two prominant
19th-century American families portrayed in "Conversation Piece"
portraits:
The kind of
families served by the narrator of "Bartleby"
The Belmonts
The Hatches
"I am one of those unambitious lawyers who ...do a snug
business among rich men's bonds and
mortgages and deeds....The late John Jacob Astor....had
no hesitation in pronouncing my first
grand point to be prudence....I [was employed] by the
late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I
admit, I love to repeat, for it hath a rounded and
orbicular sound to it, and rings like unto
bullion...."
The narrator, "Bartleby the Scrivener"
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What do these paintings reveal about the "rich men" the narrator
serves, and what do they thereby reveal about the narrator?
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