Comparing Alienation in My Life to Frost’s Mending Wall and Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener

Comparing Alienation in My Life to Frost’s Mending Wall and Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener

A mere cursory glance at my life suggests that my life has been free from alienation. While it is true that as a heterosexual Caucasian male growing up in a predominately white community I did not experience much isolation based on my skin color, my gender, or my sexual orientation. I was not immune to alienation as a child. My timidity that came about as a result of having no older siblings in whose steps I could follow, in addition to my slightly above-average intelligence proved to be the grounds for fellow students to treat me differently than they treated others. My feelings of alienation while growing up are similar to those both the speaker of Robert Frost’s "Mending Wall," and Bartleby, of Herman Melville’s "Bartleby, the Scrivener" experience.

Just as in Frost’s "Mending Wall," the speaker questions why his neighbor insists upon keeping the barrier between the two, asking, "Why do they [fences] make good neighbors?" so I, to this day, question why I was alienated as a child (line 30). In my first few years of grade school, I had lots of friends - it seemed as though everyone liked everyone else. As time progressed, however, students began to notice differences between themselves and others and act according to those often inaccurate perceptions. I remember being criticized for a variety of unsubstantiated reasons - whether it was for tucking my shirt in when it was popular to leave t-shirts untucked, for not having heard of the latest musical group, for doing my work diligently, or for getting a 100% on the test - the sarcastic and hurtful remarks did not sit well with me. Though it is clear they most likely made such co...

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...at he simply "would prefer not to."

Allowing myself to feel alienated by living in submission to my fears made my early days at school miserable. None the less, in the end, the situation turned out for the better. As my peers and I matured and I "proved myself" to them by making my voice heard in class discussions and other aspects of school outside of academics, and as I learned to expect more from others, the alienation slowly came nearly to a standstill. There will always be those who treat some people poorly. That’s their loss. Once one is able to acknowledge the fact that though unfriendly, ill-natured people do exist, not all humanity acts as such, his alienation can be overcome. Even Bartleby and Frost’s narrator could have overcome their alienation. All they had to do was put forth some effort to break down the barriers between themselves and their peers.