Comparing Alienation in My Life to Frost’s Mending Wall and Melville’s

Comparing Alienation in My Life to Frosts Mending Wall and Melvilles Bartleby, the ScrivenerA mere cursory glance at my life suggests that my life has been free from alienation. While it is true that as a hetero inner Caucasian male suppuration 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 step 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 ontogenesis up are similar to those both the speaker of Robert Frosts Mending Wall, and Bartleby, of Herman Melvilles Bartleby, the Scrivener experience.Just as in Frosts 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 alien 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 unhealthful remarks did not sit well with me. Though it is clear they most likely made such co... ...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. Thats 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 understructure be overcome. Even Bartleby and Frosts narrator could have overcome their alienation. All they had to do was put forth some effort to break peck the barriers between themselves and their peers.