Bartleby and the Birthmark

To me these stories were similar because of what they centered around. To me they centered on the idea of the unknown; the idea of something or someone that remains mysterious, that you can't understand. In "The Birthmark," I felt like the scientist was trying so hard to understand nature through his experiments. He was trying to control nature by taking away the one blemish that nature gave to his lovely wife. It was like he was trying to play God by changing Nature, which is the unknown of life. Nature is something that is unknown and does as it pleases. Nature cannot be controlled by anything. With "Bartleby" I felt like the lawyer understood all of his employees, by the way that he describes them in the beginning. He knows their habits, he knows their motivations, and he knows their personalities. When Bartleby is employed, he doesn't understand him; Bartleby becomes the unknown, just as nature is in the first story. The lawyer can't understand Bartleby so he tries to control him, tries to help him become normal. In both stories, the characters try to control that which is mysterious to them, that which they can't grasp or fathom. These acts of control fail and death is the outcome.