At first I thought that I would not be able to get through the passage because it seemed very dry and difficult but after the first page I found myself intrigued and wanting to know what the point was. I really enjoyed reading it but felt that I might have missed some greater meaning because at the end I did not feel that anything was revealed. The reader still did not know anything about Bartleby. I asked myself if Bartleby stood for something else and was not just a character. I hope we talk about this more in class because I feel as if I missed the bigger picture.
Also I felt that there was something wrong with the owner because he is drawn to this man that there is definitely something wrong with. Bartleby sort of scared me. I always thought that he was going to do something but he just always preferred not to. At first I thought that the reason he did not want to read was because he could not and I wondered why the owner did not ask he if he knew how to read. I felt that the owner was a little weird too because he could have employed other workers but instead complained about them instead. I felt that he got attached to people and could not let go.

Overall

My overall thoughts of the novel are very high. I enjoyed the book the entire way through and thought that it was a good contrast to Twain. I was very happy for Tati that he was able to make money to take care of himself and his daughter. I had the feeling that he and mother would get married because of how their situations were presented.
I definitely sympathized with Coalhouse in the end. I felt that he had tried to go through the legal system to get the justice that he deserved but that it was corrupt and would not help him. I still do feel that his actions were a bit too intense and that killing the innocent people was wrong, but I could see why he did what he did. I felt bad reading it because he felt like there was nothing else he could do to get justice and he resulted to at the time what he felt was right but later realized it was not.
Doctorow does foreshadowing throughout the novel to hint to the reader how the book is going to end, in war, once in the beginning with the little boy warning Houdini about the duke and again later in the novel toward the end. I did not feel that this war was anything like the war at the end of twain’s book. This war I felt was more of a balance from the benefits of technology to the consequences of having such power available, where as in Twain’s piece I felt that technology had a negative connotation and was over all a drawdown to society.