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BartlebyAnalysis 4 - 27 Mar 2012 - Main.SkylarPolansky
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| | Bartleby—A Law Student's Analysis
Herman Melville's short story, "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street," contains sufficient depth and detail to support an infinite variety of analysis. This short piece will analyze the text against a central theme of our class. Specifically, I will address the empathy the narrator expresses towards Bartleby and how this conflicts with the narrator's description of himself. | | | medium term, and more helpful in adding to self-knowledge above the
behavioral level. | |
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> | My interpretation of the above comment is: I am putting a band-aid on a gaping wound and what I need to do instead is re-grow the missing cells where the wound now sits. I am attempting to re-learn empathy instead of fixing the underlying problem. If this is what the above comment means (actually, regardless of whether this is what it means) I agree. It was hard for me to see this point, because I didn't want to see this point, because it's a deeper and harder problem to fix. Actually, I thought it was a deeper problem to fix. Now that I am very consciously thinking about it, maybe it's not so hard. I will re-focus the problem and change the method. If instead the underlying problem is my belief that social isolation and "more studying" is what I need to do well on the exam then I need to figure out why I think that. In attempting to answer this problem I will first engage in stream of consciousness, and then revist the problem later using Freud's concept of free association. I think isolation/more studying is the answer because it's an easy excuse to be very selfish during this time period and isolating myself feeds a hedonistic, self-centered viewpoint of the world which is very tempting for me to fall into. Additionally it prevents me from hating myself later. In the near future I will be able to look back and console myself that I dedicated all my time to studying and therefore I won't be able to punish myself later. But that's how I approached last semester and I am still punishing myself now. Why am I not learning from my mistake and why is my natural inclination to punish myself and berate myself. Maybe it's not that my natural inclination is to punish myself, but rather, that I feel uncomfortable without structure. It's a lot easier for me to punish myself and berate myself for the past because when looking at something retrospectively I can see the structure of the whole picture. I can see my behavior, and the results it led to. I hate thinking about the present and take a passive approach to the present because I am unsure of the results my present actions are going to cause. So if my problem is feeling unstructured, and having no result, then maybe the solution is to consciously create the future result [of my present behavior] in the present. I need to convince myself of the result that will come of my actions, instead of changing my actions to produce a different result. | | | -- SkylarPolansky - 26 Mar 2012 |
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