Weiyuan Liang comment on Bartleby

20:50—23:30

This part of the movie is highly similar to the original content in the book. After everyone left, Bartleby still ‘would not like’ to leave. He was insisting on something. But what is he insisting on? And why? This was exactly the question that the lawyer was wondering in the former part of the story. Although Bartleby always seemed like very thoughtful because he dared to say ‘no’ to his boss. At the end of the story, it turned out that he was actually a man that didn’t have his own opinion and he was just like a walking dead.

But there comes another question. If he really didn’t have any personal opinion, why would he keep saying ‘no’ instead of ‘yes’? The answer was given in the part I choose. He was not refusing to do something. He would “prefer not to make any change.” (Melville 25) At this point, the central idea of the author was revealed. His life was empty and was not meaningful at all. He doesn’t have any thought or any emotion. He was alive but his life was dead.

This ironical contradiction became more obvious when it came to the conversation between Bartleby and the lawyer. According to the original passage, his boss offered many possibilities for Bartleby including re-engaging in copying for someone, a clerkship in a fry-good store, a bar-tender’s business, traveling through the country collecting bills for the merchants and going as a companion to Europe to entertain some young gentleman with your conversation. Bartleby’s responds were ‘no’ of course. There were other possibilities but there seemed to no difference to him. This looked so strange and desperate for a living man.

The previous job of Bartleby was writing letters for the dead men. It was indeed a desperate job. Would this be an indication that this kind of job was so dead and people could barely endure them? I guess it was. Because Bartleby was just so desperate. It was amusing and it was sad.