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BartlebyAnalysis 8 - 28 Mar 2012 - Main.AnneFox
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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." | | | While it definitely didn't jump out at me that this was a ghost story, I did find myself picking up on how Bartleby could be a projection of the narrator. I could not help but compare how the narrator finds ways to put himself in a position where he would "prefer not to." His weakness is obvious from the moment we find out that he puts up with Turkey and Nippers' crap. For a man that values procedure so much, the narrator allows his office to consist of two men who produce a combined one day's worth of work. The narrator convinces himself that he would prefer not to fire the men and that "this was a good natural arrangement under the circumstances." (5). We see this behavior most often when it comes to the back-and-forth with Bartleby. The narrator works himself up with anger and frustration at Bartleby's lack of cooperation but convinces himself, for various reasons such as "he is useful to me" or "he means no mischief," that he would prefer not to fire him (for a long time at least). After seeing how non-confrontational he is with Turkey and Nippers, it is hard to take the narrator seriously when he states that "with any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion . . . and thrust him ignominiously from my presence." (9). The narrator repeatedly finds a reason to prefer not to take any serious action towards ridding himself of Bartleby. We see by the end that he would prefer not to lose Bartleby, the projection of himself, and tries to find ways to keep him around--as when he invites Bartleby to his home and when he visits the Tombs for the second time.
-- MatthewVillar - 28 Mar 2012 | |
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> | Since this whole assignment of reading Bartleby comes, I assume, as a supplement to the Something Split chapter of Lawyerland, I tried to infer a bit about when Joseph would want to analogize the lives Wylie, Urquat, Jansen and Voorhees to Melville’s short story. As those who posted before me noted, the narrator in Bartleby takes the easiest route in life—he’s content in his business and accepts his employees as they are. As he grows more and more exposed to Bartleby’s unusual behavior, the narrator begins to open up feel sadness, fear and guilt just by the silent presence of the unknowable man. While the narrator can be distinguished from Bartleby in many ways (mostly because as readers we get access to the emotions running rampant in his mind), the two are also the same. Bartleby is representative of all humanity in some way. Most people with a shred of integrity recognize that sometimes there are things that they would “prefer not to” do, even if they are too scared to resist. Like others said, Bartleby also provides an inescapable representation of the downtrodden, especially when he is removed as a vagrant. The narrator recognizes and sympathizes with Bartleby’s plight and uses what he considers to be all his power, to convince others that he is nothing like a vagrant.
The character in Something Split who discusses Bartleby is Ms. Urquart. She, like Melville’s narrator, experiences Bartleby’s stoic character and undergoes an emotional change. Joseph’s Lawyerland features caricatures left and right, not unlike the characters Turkey, Nippers and Gingernut, and, as we discussed in class, Urquart wants to distinguish herself from her peers. She uses Bartleby’s “I would prefer not to” as an inspiration for her own refusal to complete a task for an attorney who was “a fake…a hack…a real asshole.” Of course, as she says, it didn’t stop him from making partner, but the experience still meant something for Urquart.
I think the thing is that the characters of Urquart, Jansen and Voorhees realize the system of corporate law in which they work is sometimes corrupt. They don’t want their careers to depend on brain dead babies. They see Bartleby, but they sometimes might be able to ignore him. Bartleby doesn’t necessarily haunt their office space—at least not perversely enough for them to do anything about it. The narrator is Bartleby constantly fears guilt and tries to escape it by ignoring Bartleby only to realize he feels all the more remorseful after abandoning him. Urquart sees the lawyers around her, and herself, following pools of money wherever they collect, and the way Joseph writes her contemplative character, she seems to feel guilty about it, or at least ashamed. But like we also mentioned in class, none of the attorneys in the Something Split chapter are strong enough (like Robinson) to be resolute and control their careers entirely. Melville’s narrator is the same way—he is content in his job but he is clearly split between taking the easiest route (attaching to the money pool) and recognizing his impact (taking care of Bartleby).
Perhaps the moral of both stories is to search for inner resolution. To decide what you’d prefer not to do and, so you don’t end up a ghost, what you’d prefer to do.
-- AnneFox - 28 Mar 2012 |
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