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BartlebyAnalysis 13 - 29 Mar 2012 - Main.CourtneyDoak
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| | Bartleby—A Law Student's Analysis
This short piece addresses the reflection narrator sees of himself in Bartleby in Herman Melville's short story, "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street." | | | The character of Bartleby, I think does not go any further than a literary symbol to show the weakness of the corporate culture and the power of noncooperation. He does not exemplify the solution and his preference not to do anything obviously goes too far as he presumably starves to death from preferring not to eat. The eating motif figures prominently in the story. The first description of Bartleby's eating habits is actually in terms of the work he does: "At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents. There was no pause for digestion" (7). Bartleby seems to sustain himself on work rather than anything else - his diet of ginger nuts cannot be enough, or so the narrator contemplates: "he never eats even vegetables, he eats nothing but ginger-nuts. My mind then ran on in reveries concerning the probable effects upon the human constitution of living entirely on ginger-nuts" (10). The view that the poor live off doing work certainly would accord with upper level labor managers of the time. Does this suggest that Bartleby's stoppage of work is what ultimately causes his death, namely that his attitude not to cooperate within the system is the same thing that takes away his only real source of sustenance? Perhaps. It would be a way to subtly reaffirm the values of the Wall St. class. Ghost stories are didactic tales that reaffirm a value system by showing the dreadful results of abandoning that system. Supernatural elements have to used of course because the rational, sensible world could never undermine the system. For Bartleby to be a ghost story, it must a ghost story by the executive class to scare itself in maintaining the status quo. Bartleby cannot be hero. He must die at the end.
-- AlexWang - 29 Mar 2012 | |
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> | I agree with everything that has been said regarding Bartleby functioning as a literary symbol to elucidate the inherent flaws in the corporate culture. I totally agree with you Alex, that Bartleby is at its core a ghost story that shows the ease of crushing the Wall Street monolith through non-cooperation. Bartleby's apathy, his 'preference' not to comply with any of the narrator's requests, strikingly illuminated for me the pseudo-urgency of Wall Street and left me with a distaste for the meaninglessness of it all. When I was reading, I thought of Bartleby as a stand-in for the infinite faceless cogs in the corporate machine (the narrator included), trapped in the endless monotony of this machine (in this case, literally trapped in the confines of the four walls of this office). Unsettlingly, most of these cogs are likely unaware of their entrapment.
Overall my main takeaway in reflecting on Bartleby was similar to Jason's - that we should try to get our own Bartleby's out of our respective "offices" as soon as they appear, rather than rationalizing them away. I think it is interesting to reflect on the notion of "charity" as the narrator conceived of it, and more specifically, to reflect on how that conception colored his interactions with Bartleby. I had difficulty figuring out whether the narrator ever really developed any sort of empathy for Bartleby. While he ostensibly displayed generosity towards Bartleby, the narrator's reasons for doing so seemed entirely self-interested, as he goes so far as to declare that helping Bartleby is "a sweet morsel to his conscience". I saw the narrator as a prime example of one of those faceless cogs who does not realize the extent of his entrapment in the materialistic confines of the monotonous corporate machine. Even his 'generosity' and 'sympathy' toward Bartleby is defined in material terms. He tries to use what he deems 'charity' to buy or trade for a clear conscience rather than meaningfully reflecting on or actually dealing with Bartleby's refusals to cooperate with his requests. It seems that his rationalizations function to suppress the cognitive dissonance that Bartleby's presence arouses.
And so the next issue I began to ponder is how to assure we are not haunted similarly; how to identify our own Bartleby's if confronted with them rather than rationalizing their presence away, whether by "charity" to clear our consciences, or by other means. I suppose a starting point might be to at least strive to become conscious and aware if/when "something splits" in ourselves. Ultimately I think coming to inner resolution, avoiding a life haunted by a Bartleby-esque projection of yourself, is first identifying that you're being haunted, and subsequently committing to using that revelation to "inspire change in the face of self-realization and human awakening" as Meagan suggests. So Meagan, I guess I'm not entirely sure whether Bartleby catalyzed a metamorphosis in the narrator, but I am at least hopeful that Bartleby has the capacity to serve as a ghost of Christmas future, if the person he is haunting is able to recognize that he is being haunted.
-- CourtneyDoak - 29 Mar 2012 |
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