Month: November 2018

27:50-29:20

“Bartleby,” said I, in a still gentler tone, “come here; I am not going to ask you to do any thing you would prefer not to do—I simply wish to speak to you.”

Upon this he noiselessly slid into view.

“Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born?”

“I would prefer not to.”

“Will you tell me any thing about yourself?”

“I would prefer not to.”

“But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feel friendly towards you.”

He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon my bust of Cicero, which as I then sat, was directly behind me, some six inches above my head.

“What is your answer, Bartleby?” said I, after waiting a considerable time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated mouth.

“At present I prefer to give no answer,” he said, and retired into his hermitage. “Now and then, in the eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I would inadvertently summon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his finger, say, on the incipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was about compressing some papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer, “I prefer not to,” was sure to come; and then, how could a human creature with the common infirmities of our nature, refrain from bitterly exclaiming upon such perverseness—such unreasonableness. However, every added repulse of this sort which I received only tended to lessen the probability of my repeating the inadvertence.”

 

This particular clip comes directly from this portion of text where the narrator requests Bartleby to help him tie a bow, however I think that this clip goes beyond just what is actually happening and really talks to the text at large.  It is also addressing the 1^st portion of text here and many other occurrences in the text, in a very significant manner. In this clip we see the boss/narrator, request a very basic task of Bartleby.  The sort of task that most of the time doesn’t even need to be requested as it is so basic and most would not only be willing to help tie the bow, but offering to help. In many people there would just be the obvious inclination to go over and help the man tie the bow, but not Bartleby, and I think this clip truly displays his inactivity.  Not only did he not go over to help, when asked upon he said his famous phrase of “I prefer not to”. The reason why I believe that this scene goes beyond the scope of just this one clip and how it truly portrays the above text, is because this is the simplest task he could be requested of and he refuses to help.  So too, in the first task he is asked a simple question, to say anything about his life, another very simple and easy task, to which Bartleby refuses. This isn’t a case of a man who doesn’t want others involved in his affairs, this is simply a case of a man who doesn’t want any affairs at all, and potentially speaking of such things would create more affairs and more things to do, which Bartleby actively strives to avoid.  Bartleby is a prime example of a man without Agency, but simply saying he doesn’t have agency is an understatement.  Bartleby is a man who would rather wither away and do nothing, than be required to do anything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8DfrBcjisVo

6:20 – 6:50

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_E9aOuf6eI8

0:45 – 1:30

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOrhpRtEXH8

6:15 – 7:04

“His mother—in spite of the presence of the manager she was standing here with her hair sticking up on end, still a mess from the night—first looked at his father with her hands clasped, then went two steps towards Gregor and collapsed right in the middle of her skirts, which were spread out all around her, her face sunk on her breast, completely concealed. His father clenched his fist with a hostile expression, as if he wished to push Gregor back into his room, then looked uncertainly around the living room, covered his eyes with his hands, and cried so that his mighty breast shook.”

“By the door he first noticed what had really lured him there: it was the smell of something to eat. For a bowl stood there, filled with sweetened milk, in which swam tiny pieces of white bread. He almost laughed with joy, for he had an even greater hunger than in the morning, and he immediately dipped his head almost up to and over his eyes down into the milk. But he soon drew it back again in disappointment, not just because it was difficult for him to eat on account of his delicate left side—he could eat only if his entire panting body worked in a coordinated way—but also because the milk, which otherwise was his favourite drink and which his sister had certainly placed there for that reason, did not appeal to him at all”

 

 

As I was reading Metamorphosis, I knewn that the Story was about a man, Gregor, who turns into creature of some sort, and as I was reading the first part of the story it seemed as if he had simply turned into a massive bug.  The way I thought of him was as a cockroach. But while reading the story had he truly just been a cockroach, it didn’t really make sense to me how his sister could still love him and try to take care of him.  I understood that he was still her brother, and he was still his parent’s child but, he had totally turned into a cockroach and it was as if he was totally gone, as a gross, either small or tremendous bug, so at this point it didn’t really make sense to me how they were still trying to help him survive. It seemed that he was basically no longer any bit human and I could have understood entirely how it would have been really hard to treat him as such.  My idea of what Gregor was to look like only became more confirmed when they talked of him hiding under the couches and furniture, I could only picture him as a bug.  And this remained true through the first two videos I saw.  Through Karl-Heinz Teuber’s interpretation, to Wisecrack’s interpretation in thug notes, they both portray him as a cockroach, completely just a bug. But then I saw this third video from Carlos Atanes, and I started to understand the book a little more.  One will never know what Franz Kafka truly intended Gregor to look like, however, I think That Atanes makes it much clearer.  In this video Gregor is more half man-half cockroach where he is clearly half a man still.  In this case it is a lot harder to ignore the fact that he was a brother and a son, and I understand fully how Gregor’s sister and parents still tried to love him. This video made the entire story a lot more real for me, and maybe even more tragic, as they didn’t just lose their family member one day, but that they lost him slowly overtime as they couldn’t bear to have him live there.

27:50-29:20

“Bartleby,” said I, in a still gentler tone, “come here; I am not going to ask you to do any thing you would prefer not to do—I simply wish to speak to you.”

Upon this he noiselessly slid into view.

“Will you tell me, Bartleby, where you were born?”

“I would prefer not to.”

“Will you tell me any thing about yourself?”

“I would prefer not to.”

“But what reasonable objection can you have to speak to me? I feel friendly towards you.”

He did not look at me while I spoke, but kept his glance fixed upon my bust of Cicero, which as I then sat, was directly behind me, some six inches above my head.

“What is your answer, Bartleby?” said I, after waiting a considerable time for a reply, during which his countenance remained immovable, only there was the faintest conceivable tremor of the white attenuated mouth.

“At present I prefer to give no answer,” he said, and retired into his hermitage. “Now and then, in the eagerness of dispatching pressing business, I would inadvertently summon Bartleby, in a short, rapid tone, to put his finger, say, on the incipient tie of a bit of red tape with which I was about compressing some papers. Of course, from behind the screen the usual answer, “I prefer not to,” was sure to come; and then, how could a human creature with the common infirmities of our nature, refrain from bitterly exclaiming upon such perverseness—such unreasonableness. However, every added repulse of this sort which I received only tended to lessen the probability of my repeating the inadvertence.”

 

This particular clip comes directly from this portion of text where the narrator requests Bartleby to help him tie a bow, however I think that this clip goes beyond just what is actually happening and really talks to the text at large.  It is also addressing the 1^st portion of text here and many other occurrences in the text, in a very significant manner. In this clip we see the boss/narrator, request a very basic task of Bartleby.  The sort of task that most of the time doesn’t even need to be requested as it is so basic and most would not only be willing to help tie the bow, but offering to help. In many people there would just be the obvious inclination to go over and help the man tie the bow, but not Bartleby, and I think this clip truly displays his inactivity.  Not only did he not go over to help, when asked upon he said his famous phrase of “I prefer not to”. The reason why I believe that this scene goes beyond the scope of just this one clip and how it truly portrays the above text, is because this is the simplest task he could be requested of and he refuses to help.  So too, in the first task he is asked a simple question, to say anything about his life, another very simple and easy task, to which Bartleby refuses. This isn’t a case of a man who doesn’t want others involved in his affairs, this is simply a case of a man who doesn’t want any affairs at all, and potentially speaking of such things would create more affairs and more things to do, which Bartleby actively strives to avoid.  Bartleby is a prime example of a man without Agency, but simply saying he doesn’t have agency is an understatement.  Bartleby is a man who would rather wither away and do nothing, than be required to do anything.