Bartleby question...!
Dear Hardworking American Experience Students:
Although feel free to go longer if you feel the need to convey adequately your ideas, please respond in at least 250 words to the following question:
"Why does Melville choose to have Bartleby 'prefer not to' respond to the demands made on him by his environment? What is going on in Bartleby's head? WHAT EXACTLY IS THE THEME OF THE STORY? What is Melville trying to say through the character of Bartleby? What is his point?"This online discussion is just another way in which students can discuss and learn from each other, and it will lead up to this concluding assignment for "Bartleby." The more "help" you have, the easier all will unfold. Please take into account the following criteria Mr. Geib will take into account when assessing your posting:
- Posting by due date and meeting required length (at least 250 words).
- Reflections must be in response to the question posted and/or responses to other students’ posts.
- Posting indicates significant reflection on text and/or class discussions.
- Posting includes specific details from texts and/or class discussions as support for claims.
posted by 515guyforlife at 1/25/2005 10:25:00 AM
3 Comments:
I was pretty much unable to discern what could have been 100% of Melville’s message with Bartleby, but I think that probably does something to do with the advent of workers unions and strikes as Julie said in her bloggy thingy; but I don’t think that it’s all just about the literal meaning of the burning of the letters. I think that Bartleby represents the working class in America; the “dead letter office” is a symbol for the treatment of workers and people as a disposable commodity, and describes clerks of the mail office coldly taking rings and money from the envelopes before they are about to be burned. Bartleby’s obsession with walls is a function of the fact that the average American worker was always trapped financially by Wall Street; even if Bartleby had left his job in the scrivener’s place, he still would have been trapped by the system. This was what Bartleby was against, more than the actual monotonies of his current employment, and this sentiment was further emblazoned in him by his deadening time in the letter office. This is why Bartleby is always pallidly staring at walls; and when his boss comes into the room to ask him why he always “prefers not to” do work, Bartleby, staring at the wall, responds “isn’t it obvious?” (or something of that manner; I lost my book so I’m working from memory here.) The boss assumes that he has some physical ailment and needs time off, or is feeling “under the weather” or is blind; but the real reason, the “obvious” reason Bartleby would prefer not to participate in his workplace because there is no point to it; he is trapped in an oppressive system that grinds workers into the ground eventually, and he knows it; it has taken his spirit. He sees no hope of escape from his predicament. His miniature “strike” is the only sort of liberation from this system that he sees in sight. He refuses to leave even when the owners of the establishment change because to him, it’s all the same. Predictably, the Police, which can be seen as a metaphor for the Union armies, come in and imprison Bartleby, who promptly dies after expressing his contempt for the owner who would put down his passive resistance to the capitalistic grind with force. The story’s point as I see it is an allegory of the horrible tragedy of the uprising and failing of worker’s unions and the unrecognized bondage that they inhabit daily in their workplaces.
I think that Bartleby, in his passive and apathetic lifestyle, represents mainstream humanity and the working force of men. He faces all comings without strong emotions and without expressing a desire to act in order to change unpleasant circumstances. I think that Melville views the mass of society as unambitious wage slaves, the sheep before the shepherd. The theme of walls in Melville’s story represents both the social and mental blocks that imprison these working class people in their caste in society. Bartleby is unresponsive and inactive because he is a prisoner in this caste, by both his and the public’s vices. The way that Bartleby repeatedly and voluntarily turns to face the walls (both in his office and his cell) shows that he takes comfort and solace in these restrictions, though they are not beneficial to him. It is also entirely plausible that he might lack the confidence or courage to challenge his predicament.
The lawyer and Bartleby both share one thing in common – they were both dismissed from previous jobs due to changes in politics. This connection between the successful lawyer and Bartleby shows the lawyer that he himself is also in the same position as his employee – bound in his state as a small-time, mediocre lawyer. Though he could be as great as Mr. Astor, he stays comfortably in his lesser role. Melville’s tale is a cynical interpretation of modern industrialized society.
My interpretation of Melville's Bartleby was, with consideration to which time period we are studying and, in which, he wrote the piece, that Bartleby was used as a symbol for the labor force of the rapidly industrializing post-war America. Bartleby "prefers not" to do ask he is asked because he serves as a metaphor for the neglected and sometimes ignored work force of factories and "robber barons." The author is annoyed and surprised to find that Bartleby had taken up residence in the office; dare I say he was being taken advantage of! But at the same time he takes pity on the poor creature of Bartleby. Bartleby was damaged by the corruption of the rigged government, and had seen the good, the bad, the ugly (ew.. .1 know, so cliche) of government fueled by greed and a constant feeling of needing more. Then, after the system had been cleaned up, he could never go back to the way things were. He did not out rightly refuse to do his work, but rather he claimed that he "preferred not to" and politely declined. This may seem strange that he took the job, yet only continues his diligent copying for a short time thereafter. But why keep the job? I think because Bartleby did not want to quit. It is easier to stay in one place than to move around job-to-job. There is also a clue as to maybe why Bartleby was the way he was at the end. The lawyer hears a rumor that Bartleby had had a fixed position hi the Dead Letter Office, and comments, "Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men?" The Melville is showing that the sadness of all those unopened letters was hard and had touched Bartleby. He was a wounded being after that, and was not content with work or life in general. Bartleby finally starves himself to death, and so ends the strange tale of the man's life. I am not really sure as to what the walls represent, but I know you said it was a story of walls. Perhaps it was that there was a wall, a barrier, between the masters and their laborers. There is this misunderstanding and miscommunication between the two. The labor is over worked and underpaid while the master is under worked and overpaid. This was the corruption present in the time before there were regulations on how businesses and factories were run. The world had become impersonal and indifferent. The focus was now on money and power, and it did not matter that there were so many people suffering daily. They slaved away, and got no recognition or thanks. There were just expected to show up, and, like machines, work until all their fuel had run out; even still after that point they were pushed. Bartleby is a symbol of the exhausted and frustrated work force that so tired it simply couldn't go on.
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