Bartleby, the Scrivener, written by the very famous and popular Herman Melville, is basically in short about a lawyer hiring a couple scriveners, or someone who copies documents, but mainly revolves around one named Bartleby. Bartleby comes off as one of the most productive scriveners, but as the reader sees, Bartleby is an odd character. The lawyer will ask him a simple task or even a simple personal question and a common reply from Bartlby would be "I would prefer not to." I believe this can be compared to issues surrounding religion. Religion is a preference and something anyone can choose, choose to not do, choose to listen about, choose to read about, choose basically anything around it. And Bartleby chooses not to comply with his boss even by doing any sort of task. He is polite about his refusal, but it is still stubborn nontheless. I think this has to do with religion in that Bartleby is given a choice to follow some set of rules given to him by his boss, and chooses not to. And it ties into religion where an individual who is religious does choose to abide by the rules set forth, but these rules come from the higher power that is different given the religion. But at the end, they are both matters of choice; one can choose to follow the rules given to them by a boss or authoritive figure or not, and one can choose to be religious and follow the rules of their religion or they can choose not to be religious and not follow any sort of rules surrounding religion.
Nick Riselli
Nick, I'm not sure I completely understand your religious analogy. I think you are trying to say that a boss is similar to an employees God-like figure, and the employee is supposed to follow them like they would follow a religious set of rules. While religion and working are both choices, Bartleby made the choice to work for the lawyer. That is why it makes less sense to me that he would be so disobedient as an employee. I think that this points to Bartleby having some sort of mental illness that leads to his saying he would "prefer not to" do his work.
ReplyDeleteAmanda
I agree with you in the sense that religion is in a fact something you can choose all for yourself. Many people would disagree with you and say that everyone must be a certain religion but I think that that is absurd. The way I saw the piece was Bartleby is mankind and Bartleby continues to "prefer not to do that" just like mankind generally prefers not to help out. I would say that the narrator could be seen as a God who is perplexed and shaking his head in disbelief at mankind or Bartleby. It is clear that someone does not have a clear head throughout this story, but was Bartleby the one going insane or was it the narrator?
ReplyDeleteShane, I thought the question you asked was really interesting. I had the same thoughts about the narrator being the one with mental illness. His constant analysis of people makes me wonder how he gets work done. His descriptions of his workers seem to be extreme and exaggerated. He does not seem to be the most reliable narrator because of his constant judgements and opinion making of his peers. For all we know, Bartleby may not be the way as he is described. If he actually is this way, then it seems if the narrator thought more clearly, he would have responded to Bartleby's actions in a different way.
ReplyDelete-Jordan