Month: November 2018

Overall, I think this video does a great job bringing up two points: Franz Kafka’s interpretation of his own life and the treatment of middle-class workers in capitalist society.

The first point that’s brought up brings up to the idea of translation we discussed while reading Don Quixote. This novel was first written in German under the title Die Verwandlung, or The Transformation in English. In common English translation, Gregor’s described as a giant insect. The original German text, however, describes him as a Ungeziefer, or a pest or parasite. This was a word often used in countries like Germany and Austria-Hungary to demonize and alienate Jewish citizens. Because he was a Jew living in Austria-Hungary in the early 1900’s, I think that he identified with Gregor because he, too, was isolated from his countrymen.

The second point brought up was the treatment of the working-class. Gregor worked hard and well for his family. When he was no longer useful, however, his own family wanted him gone. It doesn’t even seem to me that they mourned his death at the end of the novel. This can be a metaphor for capitalism. People are allowed to work until they’re no longer useful, and very few people are able to retire peacefully. Many people have to continue working without being able to because they can’t afford to live without a job. We see this most frequently with our military. Many servicemen and servicewomen serve to protect our country. Yet when they come home, they get little to no help re-adjusting to society.

I see the story of Bartleby the Scrivener as one of choices.  Bartleby was a good employee to the judge until he chose one day to simply not complete a task. Of course, he spiraled from there. It’s obvious that Bartleby is a negatively dynamic character and that there’s something mentally wrong with him. The judge stresses this point by saying:

“What shall I do? I now said to myself, buttoning up my coat to the last button.
What shall I do? what ought I to do? what does conscience say I should do with
this man, or rather ghost.”

Bartleby is emotionally drained and almost dead by the end of his life. We discover at the end of the short story that Bartleby had a job as a clerk in the Dead Letter Office. Maybe this leads to the question of what was it that he saw in those letters. There’s a possibility that the letters were traumatic, or possibly full of regrettable choices the authors made.

This story is mysterious, and I believe the digital creator of this video did a good job of keeping that mystery. I think that moving through the plot so quickly lets the audience get a sense of the story story but also leaves an open ending for viewers to wonder what really happened.

(Click image for PDF of the whole novel.)

The past and present wilt—I have fill’d them,
emptied them,
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.
Listener up there! what have you to confide to me?
Look in my face while I snuff the sidle of evening,
(Talk honestly, no one else hears you, and I stay
only a minute longer.)
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.) …
Will you speak before I am gone? will you prove
already too late? …
I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the
runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.
I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the
grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under
your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fiber your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

I first came across these last two stanzas in Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself while reading Karen M. McManus’s One of Us Is Lying: a murder mystery involving four high school students. This excerpt of the poem was read at one of the protagonist’s funeral because it was his favorite poem. I found this very interesting considering how he died: suicide. (The problem is, we don’t know it was a suicide until the end of the book. At this point in the story, he was believed to be murdered) I think that in the context of the story, these two stanzas were tools for foreshadowing the ending of the story.

Lines that really stood out to me were the following:

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fiber your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

I thought these lines were important because they fully frame the story. Like we’ve discussed in class, Song of Myself mirrors what Walt Whitman thought of life. I don’t think that these two stanzas are the last two by coincidence. To me, it seems that this is Whitman’s view of death and what comes after. It’s almost like he’s speaking from a place beyond life, if that makes sense. He’s hoping for something after life.  To me, this is his farewell. It’s  not a permanent one, however. It’s more like a “See you later,” than an actual “Goodbye.”