Category: Uncategorized

Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street

I chose to analyze the concluding paragraph which consists of the lawyer revealing a rumor about Bartleby’s past. I thought it was interesting as it provided me with insight into his history and a better understanding of Bartleby’s character.

Text (last page/paragraph)

“…Yet here I hardly know whether I should divulge one little item of rumor, which came to my ear a few months after the scrivener’s decease. Upon what basis it rested, I could never ascertain; and hence, how true it is I cannot now tell. But inasmuch as this vague report has not been without certain strange suggestive interest to me, however sad, it may prove the same with some others; and so I will briefly mention it. The report was this: that Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in the administration. When I think over this rumor, I cannot adequately express the emotions which seize me. Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for the flames? For by the cart-load they are annually burned. Sometimes from out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring:—the finger it was meant for, perhaps, molders in the grave; a bank-note sent in swiftest charity:—he whom it would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands of life, these letters speed to death.
Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!” (29).

In the text above, the Lawyer becomes emotional because dead letters sound much “like dead men” to him. At the end of this paragraph, the lawyer expresses his thoughts on how this business/job could turn any man into a hopeless one, “pardon for those who died despairing; hope for those who died unhoping” (29). I found it interesting that the lawyer was only able to somewhat understand Bartleby’s history and mentality after his death. I think the silver lining in this is that the lawyer begins to see Bartleby as a proxy for humanity. There’s a lesson to be learned from this — We all have personal issues/weaknesses that facilitate a detachment from society/people, thus we should continuously try to be more connected and kind towards each other. This concluding paragraph suggests that Bartleby’s depressing job might have affected his sanity – Thus, in return, we must wonder what makes/shapes ‘us’ into the person we are today.

Video: 21:00 – 23:52

Metamorphosis Text: Part II (paragraph 20 & 21)

The text that I chose to analyze focuses specifically on the theme of alienation that occurs between Gregor and his family.

Part II: Paragraph 20

“She was inclined to think to the contrary; the sight of the naked walls made her own heart heavy, and why shouldn’t Gregor have the same feeling, considering that he had been used to his furniture for so long and might feel forlorn without it. “And doesn’t it look,” she concluded in a low voice-in fact she had been almost whispering all the time as if to avoid letting Gregor, whose exact whereabouts she did not know, hear even the tones of her voice, for she was convinced that he could not understand her words-“doesn’t it look as if we were showing him, by taking away his furniture, that we have given up hope of his ever getting better and are just leaving him coldly to himself? I think it would be best to keep his room exactly as it has always been so that when he comes back to us he will find everything unchanged and be able all the more easily to forget what has happened in between.”

Part II: Paragraph 21

“On hearing these words from his mother Gregor realized that the lack of all direct human speech for the past two months together with the monotony of family life must have confused his mind, otherwise he could not account for the fact that he had quite earnestly looked forward to having his room emptied of furnishing. Did he really want his warm room, so comfortably fitted with old family furniture, to be turned into a naked den in which he would certainly be able to crawl unhampered in all directions but at the price of shedding simultaneously all recollection of his human background? He had indeed been so near the brink of forgetfulness that only the voice of his mother, which he had not heard for so long, had drawn him back from it.”

Gregor locking himself in his room symbolizes isolation from the outside world and his family. He confines himself within his room because he feels like there is nowhere else he can go and nowhere else he is safe. In the text I referenced above, the removal of his furniture is a dehumanizing act—as the last link to Gregor’s humanity and if the furniture is removed then so is his human past.

 

Start video 30:38-34:00 and 44:00-44:51

Alexandra Tu

10/22/2018

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1zHhiA7gDc

Song of Myself by Walt Whitman: Section 6 Analysis

In this video, Tim Mcgee facilitates a great discussion about one of the most important sections in the Song of Myself– that is section 6. This section is significant for Walt Whitman’s work because it’s ultimately the reason why he titled his collection of poetry, “Leaves of Grass”. Additionally, Section 6  highlights many important symbols which explain his overall theme that can best be described as “the Circle of Life”.

The beginning of this section (00:42) starts with a child asking him a question which he cannot provide a clear answer to, “A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he.” 

Whitman guesses that grass, “is the handkerchief of the Lord”  which is a symbol for a loving gift. It means that God is present in the manifestation of nature’s beautiful things such as grass.

So what is grass? After numerous guesses regarding its symbolic nature, Whitman finalizes his thoughts:  “And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.” This metaphor is based on the idea that the dead support new life. Grass is the symbol of the transcendence of life because it represents the cycle of life: living beings come from nature and go back to nature (are buried in the ground when they die). Thus, earth is one big graveyard because the soil is composed of dead bodies and soil is what allows for roots/new grass to grow.

Whitman concludes by saying: “The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life” (6:13 in video) – Mcgee sums this up by saying: Life is beautifully lived when you appreciate how beautiful death is because it is apart of the experience. It is to be embraced.

Whitman’s idea’s / guesses of grass are meant to give us comfort about ‘life’ and learn to appreciate/value how beautiful the cycle of life and death is. He believes that death never ends anything – rather it’s the continuation of life and once we understand that, we get to recognize the beauty of our existence.