Bartleby The Scrivener & The Underground Man

Alienation and rejection from society are apparent in both Melville’s, Bartleby the Scrivener and Dostoevsky’s, Notes from the Underground.
Bartleby can be compared to the Underground Man in the aspect that each shares a disconnection from their society and display actions that do not appear rational. Bartleby shows this in a more passive, less self hating way while Dostoevsky’s work is more controversial. In his Underground Man he establishes more of an empty man with such extreme nihilistic and modernist views that he comes across as repulsive and uncomprehensive.  Bartleby, on the other hand, regardless of his emptiness and silence, is more real and understandable than the outspoken Underground Man.