{"id":1227,"date":"2010-03-03T00:55:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-03T04:55:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=1227"},"modified":"2010-03-03T00:55:00","modified_gmt":"2010-03-03T04:55:00","slug":"the-man-who-preferred-not-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/?p=1227","title":{"rendered":"The man who “preferred not to”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I just finished reading \u201cBartleby, the Scrivener\u201d for the second time (as I read it once last year in my freshman writing seminar), and have WAY too much to say about the fascinating tale of the man who \u201cpreferred not to.\u201d I actually just reread the response I had to write for my freshman writing seminar and found that I focused on the idea of Bartleby endearing himself (if you can call it that) to the narrator by constantly being there<\/em>. In this way, we can compare the narrator\u2019s obsession with Bartleby to Ahab\u2019s obsession with Moby Dick, as Ahab was constantly reminded of Moby Dick by the presence of his substitution leg. Additionally, both characters refer to Bartleby and Moby Dick as their fates, respectively. Anyway, I just wanted to briefly connect this story with Moby Dick<\/em> before moving on completely from the novel\u2026
\nThough it was hard for me to decide what to focus on in this post on \u201cBartleby, the Scrivener,\u201d I think I will decide on identity<\/em> in the story (as that seems a good foundation to start with before tackling the other motifs). I spent the whole reading of the story underlining all of the points in which the narrator defines Bartleby in some specific, pointed way (by using certain adjectives, comparing him to certain great figures and even office furniture\u2026), only to realize that the narrator hardly defines himself in such specific terms, besides to say that he is \u201ca rather elderly man\u201d and \u201ca man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best\u201d (5 on the pdf file). We never even learn the narrator\u2019s name. How curious that we have so many more defining terms for the character whom the narrator knows nothing about as opposed to the character whom the narrator knows everything about (the narrator himself)! Also, I find it interesting that the narrator \u201chas been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best,\u201d when Bartleby proceeds to challenge that conviction by doing essentially nothing<\/em> and having what seems to be a rather empty existence that culminates in his death (or suicide, as he starves himself).
\nAnyhow, here are some of the phrases that the narrator uses to describe Bartleby:
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u201ca sort of innocent and transformed Marius among the ruins of Carthage!\u201d (14)
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0a \u201cSon of Adam\u201d (along with the narrator himself) (14)
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cpallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!\u201d (Bartleby\u2019s first appearance) (8)
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0compares him to \u201cpale plaster-of-paris bust of Cicero\u201d in his (Bartleby\u2019s) lack of ordinary humanity (9)
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u201ca lost column of some ruined temple\u201d (18)
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u201cmore a man of preference than assumptions\u201d (haha) (18)
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u201ca mill stone\u201d (17)
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u201ca bit of wreck in the mid-Atlantic\u201d (17)
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u201charmless and noiseless as\u2026these chairs\u201d (20)
\nAnd, of course, there are many other passages describing Bartleby, as he is the focus of Melville\u2019s short story. Also, we cannot forget that the narrator refers to Bartleby in the same way as the story\u2019s title, as a \u201cscrivener.\u201d
\nFirst of all, we have to take into account that all of these descriptions belong purely to the narrator, and perhaps almost purely to his imagination. He knows nothing about Bartleby\u2019s life other than the parts he has witnessed, and even in those he cannot probe very far into Bartleby\u2019s interior. So, we cannot necessarily trust the narrator\u2019s descriptions of Bartleby. The narrator does shape a certain picture of the curious scrivener, returning to similar imagery to describe him, such as that of Bartleby as the last component of some kind of wreck (\u201cthe ruins of Carthage,\u201d \u201ca ruined temple,\u201d \u201ca bit of wreck in the mid-Atlantic,\u201d this last one harkening again back to Moby Dick, even though they were in the Pacific at the time of the wreck). The theme of inanimate objects reoccurs, as well, in the narrator\u2019s descriptions of Bartleby (a chair, a column, a piece of wreck, the bust of Cicero, a mill stone). We see why the narrator pities Bartleby (because he is alone in a terrible wreck of a world- if we want to go that far, or just alone in the terrible wreck of his own existence?) but cannot seem to approach him or really want to try to overcome him (because you cannot reason with a non-human- you cannot tell a chair to leave and never come back).
\nSorry for jumping around so much, but one last comment about Bartleby in the narrator\u2019s eyes, on how the latter compares the former to the bust of Cicero that sits in the office. I did some Wikipedia research and found that Cicero\u2019s \u201ccareer as a statesmen was marked by inconsistencies and tendencies to shift his position in response to changes in the political climate\u201d (just type in \u201cCicero\u201d to the Wikipedia search bar to find this information). This picture of Cicero starkly opposes the one we get of Bartleby as remaining mostly constant despite his change of situation (he occupies the same office after its former occupants leave; he stares at the wall in the office and the prison alike). Bartleby himself even states, \u201cI would prefer not to make any change at all\u201d (24). Also according to Wikipedia, Cicero \u201carticulated an early, abstract conceptualization of rights,\u201d something that Bartleby seems to stress with his behavior. He would \u201cprefer not to,\u201d so he does not. It is his right as a human. Bartleby\u2019s death (his suicide, rather, his death-by-choice) can be seen as an abuse of these human rights (\u201cAh, humanity!\u201d). I feel that Bartleby spends the whole story (inadvertently? the world may never know\u2026) challenging the narrator\u2019s idea of humanity, and as Bartleby\u2019s nature grows more perplexing, the narrator grasps harder and harder to define him as something within his own realm of human understanding. Alas, I am hesitant make any conclusions about a narrative as perplexing as Bartleby himself\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I just finished reading \u201cBartleby, the Scrivener\u201d for the second time (as I read it once last year in my freshman writing seminar), and have WAY too much to say about the fascinating tale of the man who \u201cpreferred not to.\u201d I actually just reread the response I had to write for my freshman writing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1227","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-labor-or-slavery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1227"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1228,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1227\/revisions\/1228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1227"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1227"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1227"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}