Month: November 2018

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