| | Bartleby—A Law Student's Analysis | |
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< | 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. | >
> | 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." | | |
Prior to Bartleby's entrance, the narrator describes himself as an experienced, self-possessed professional. He knows what he wants and he seems to have acquired it. “I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best” (1). The narrator was recently appointed a Master in Chancery, for which he completes little arduous work and yet is compensated pleasantly. He approaches life from a distinctly self-interested point of view, and yet this self-interest occasionally compels him to help others. “Mere self-interest, then, if no better motive can be enlisted, should … prompt all beings to charity and philanthropy” (23). In contrast to his two copyists, who take turns flubbing their work according to the hour of the day, the narrator appears content and controlled. In short, the narrator appears to live a work life that many of us desire for ourselves. He is cool, collected, and well-paid. | |
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< | Appears, you mean, if we
take what he says at face value only? | >
> | Of course, this depiction contrasts with the image of the lawyer that we have been presented with this semester: the lawyer that seeks justice for his client. The narrator faces this unpleasant reality when his crafted appearance is betrayed by Bartleby's arrival. | | | | |
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< | Of course, this depiction contrasts with the image of the ideal lawyer that we have been presented with this semester. The ideal lawyer strives for justice. | >
> | The narrator sees himself reflected in Bartleby, and this drives an obsession with him. No history is provided about Bartleby until near the end of the story. This yields a blank canvas (or empty vessel) for the narrator to project himself onto as he starts to identify with Bartleby. The narrator's remark that he 'never feels so private as when he knows Bartleby is there' is palpable. | | | | |
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< | You think that's my
point? That the "ideal" lawyer is trying to achieve justice? And
that every non-ideal lawyer is therefore pursuing some other goal?
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> | The narrator cannot rid himself of Bartleby, even though everything in the preceding description suggests that he should. He alternates between lashing out at Bartleby and coddling him. This irrational behavior from a self-styled cool, collected man may point to seeing something in Bartleby that the narrator dislikes about himself. The narrator's complacence to Bartleby's slow drop in work-ethic may be to criticize the routine and sterile world the lawyer lives in, doing "safe" but well-paid work on Wall Street. The narrator in the story has practiced for many years--he is in his early sixties--and is in a career for an 'eminently safe man.' Challenging Bartleby means challenging the decisions he has made for himself, something he is not willing to confront after practicing for so long. | | | | |
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< | He eats well only when he satiates
his clients. | >
> | Bartleby continues to challenge the ease and logic in the narrator's life, yet the narrator fails to rid himself of Bartleby every single time. When Bartleby originally fails to complete his work, the narrator rationalizes his decision not to fire him by reasoning between logic and altruism. “Poor fellow! Thought I, he means no mischief…He is useful to me. I can get along with him.” When the narrator discovers that Bartleby lives in his office, without his permission, the narrator is unable to ask him to leave. He again rationalizes this decision. The narrator comments on the loneliness of Wall Street on nights and weekends, and empathizes for the lonely Bartleby. | | | | |
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< | Surely you don't mean
that. Surely you know I don't mean that. | >
> | When the narrator surrenders his office space to move to another location, simply to "isolate him from sight" but not voice, the narrator is segregating the feelings inside him that Bartleby represents. The narrator reveals this internal conflict when he addresses the lawyer who moved into his old offices. The narrator pretends not to know Bartleby's name, and originally refuses to do anything about him. However, once the narrator finds a way to rationalize the interaction (by fearing his own exposure in the papers), he immediately runs off in his attempt to convince Bartleby to quit the premises. | | | | |
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< | The hardest way through life is the only way through life, otherwise the lawyer has wasted the talents that nature and society has bestowed upon him. | >
> | This reading may have been assigned to drive this point: any lawyer worth his salt thinks before mindlessly entering a practice. A lawyer brings justice to her clients by thinking about the work she's doing and the career she is embarking on, not by pawning a license in a "safe" workplace. | | | | |
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< | What's this crap about
the hardest way through life? The job is the job. The job is to
seek justice for the client. Not having a client or not seeking
justice are not doing the job. | >
> | This is the tragic story about the trap of looking back after a career in law and wondering how you missed the opportunity to make the world a more just place. Someday you or I may be the narrator, confronted with Bartleby, and not being able to admit to ourselves that a lifetime went by, and we missed it. | | | | |
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< | Professor Moglen's lawyer would not profess “when at last it is perceived that such [misery] cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it” (16). According to the narrator, Professor Moglen's ideal lawyer is a touch illogical.
That's a strawman. You
haven't any warrant for the premise, and the conclusion is therefore
unestablished.
Bartleby challenges the narrator's equilibrium. The narrator cannot rid himself of Bartleby, even though everything in the preceding description suggests that he should. When Bartleby refuses to engage in proofreading, the narrator fails to dismiss him. “With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence” (9). Against the pretense of being a logical, ease-seeking professional, the narrator should have fired Bartleby.
Bartleby continues to challenge the ease and logic in the narrator's life, yet the narrator fails to rid himself of Bartleby every single time. When Bartleby originally fails to complete his work, the narrator rationalizes his decision not to fire him by reasoning between logic and altruism. “Poor fellow! Thought I, he means no mischief…He is useful to me. I can get along with him.” When the narrator discovers that Bartleby lives in his office, without his permission, the narrator is unable to ask him to leave. He again rationalizes this decision. The narrator comments on the loneliness of Wall Street on nights and weekends, and empathizes for the lonely Bartleby. Even when the narrator surrenders his office space to move to another location, simply to remove himself from Bartleby, he is unable to stay away from the tragic figure. The narrator reveals his internal conflict when he addresses the lawyer who moved into his old offices. The narrator pretends not to know Bartleby's name, and originally refuses to do anything about him. However, once the narrator finds a way to rationalize the interaction (by fearing his own exposure in the papers), he immediately runs off in his attempt to convince Bartleby to quit the premises.
This hesitation, this internal conflict, is inconsistent with the narrator's previous description of himself. The self-interested professional would fire Bartleby the second he refused to perform his duties. He would forcibly remove Bartleby, either using the state's force or his own, once Bartleby began trespassing in his office. He would forget Bartleby when he moved, content himself once he “perceived that [he] had now done all that [he] possibly could,” and move on to his other affairs. The narrator, for all his ruminations of logic and ease, cannot forget the tragic figure.
The troublesome aspect of this story, and this analysis, is that the narrator only develops empathy when he perceives an individual worthy of it. The narrator expresses little or no empathy for his other coworkers. He finds business-related reasons to remain patient with Turkey and Nippers. He expresses a small deal of admiration for Ginger Nut, but only in proportion to Ginger Nut's competence at his menial tasks. He certainly expresses little empathy or feeling when describing himself or his practice pre-Bartleby. It seems that some aspect of Bartleby's personality triggers the empathy that we witness wreak havoc on the narrator's logical decision-making process throughout the story.
So perhaps the
empathy/no empathy dichotomy isn't a very good way of understanding
this situation. Having written these sentences, perhaps it would
have been a good path to read them over, see that the approach you
took didn't actually illuminate the events, let alone the purpose of
the work of art that describes them, and go back to look for another
one.
Professor Moglen, however, suggests that any lawyer worth his salt would be empathetic before he began practicing.
I haven't suggested
this, but I have suggested something else that might be confused with
this suggestion. If the point is to summarize my ideas, however,
Bartleby is probably not the place to look: I didn't write it.
The narrator in the story has practiced for many years (he is in his early sixties).
And understanding him,
not by limiting oneself to believing what he says about himself,
might be helpful.
The question that lingers is how we, as law students, develop empathy before we meet our Bartleby. How do we strive for justice before our conscience dictates that we should? Can we?
Why are these the
questions? Others seem to me conceivable, even if the rule is that
every question must be about you "as law students." For example, if
your conscience doesn't dictate that you should strive to make
justice for your clients, should you be in law school at all? Why do
you think empathy is something you have to "develop"? Perhaps
absence of empathy is like color-blindness, rather than like having a
badly-trained memory.
-- AlexBuonocore - 25 Mar 2012 | >
> | (AlexBuonocore, EbenMoglen, HarryKhanna, 27 Mar 2012) | | | I think developing empathy requires conscious practice and constant socialization. I always considered myself an empathetic person, and believed my parents taught me well how to place myself in somebody else's shoes before reaching a conclusion. This self-perception has been shattered during the first year of law school for three reasons 1) the stress of getting good grades as a 1L justified my abandonment of almost every aspect of my life other than studying 2) the isolation of the 1L experience further shielded me from the rest of the world and led me to believe this abandonment was ok and 3) reading about John Brown and Tharaud and listening to Professor Moglen's accounts of stories of injustice opened my eyes to how much I've been ignoring. |
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