American Stories: The Community Versus The Individual

	The conflict of the community versus the individual is a common theme in
American literature. The following are several examples of short stories
that use this theme to convey different messages and illustrate the lives
of the American people. In the first short story, Bartleby, the
Scrivener  by Herman Melville, Bartleby's life of self-isolation from
society, described by the narrator, results in his death. The paranoia
that isolates the Swede from the community at Fort Romper, in Steven
Crane's Blue Hotel, also leads to his death. In Charlotte Perkins
Gilman's The Yellow Wall-Paper, the symbolic confinement of a woman by
her husband is used to depict the plight of women in American society.
Finally, in Sarah Orne Jewett's A White Heron, Sylvia's protection of the
white heron's secret represents the encroachment of industry and the
repression of women in the early 1900's. All four short stories use the
theme of community versus the individual to express their message through
the many different people in American society.