Melville “Bartleby, the Scrivener”

A Story of Wall Street—subtitle—what are your expectations: story of money, greed, corruption, power, murder, business, finance,

Is Wall Street the epitome of the American dream?

Warren Buffett, the sage of Omaha

 Bernard Madoff, another self-made billionaire

Why did Melville specifically choose Wall Street—symbolic value?  Nature of capitalism? 

Trick the reader—tales of uplift, lifting yourself up by your bootstraps, fiction/nonfiction—stories of “rise”

Horatio Alger specialized in stories of rags-to-riches

Ragged Dick is manual for joining the middle-class (bank account—capital—you’re not just a wage slave—participant not victim) (Three r’s, but street smarts more important)

Dick transforms into “Richard Hunter”—American Dream—ability to define yourself, rename yourself—complete break between underclass Dick and middle-class Richard (loss of identity, hidden identity?)

Message of America: hard work, clean living, moral foundation leads to materialistic success (sign of spiritual approval)

This rags-to-riches movement coincides with 19^th century industrialization, mobility (both physical and social), less social stratification (particularly in U.S.)—more focus on individualism at the expense of the communal

Narrator: “Yes. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange wilfulness, will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience.”

Bartleby (labor) has become a commodity (bought and sold like any other)—dehumanized through the capitalist system (symbolized by the abstractions of Wall Street)—is this true charity?  Can you give unselfishly with no benefit to yourself—is that better than building a hospital wing named after your mother/wife?

Is there true altruism?  Unselfish regard for benefit of others

Narrator: “Before, I had never experienced aught but a not-unpleasing sadness. The bond of a common humanity now drew me irresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy!”

Does the narrator change or have a self-recognition? Catharsis?

Narrator: “Somehow, of late I had got into the way of involuntarily using this word “prefer” upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions. And I trembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already and seriously affected me in a mental way.”

Whole office is getting infected with choice (to take a stand against the monster of the inhuman system)—humanize the system (“prefer not”)—could upset whole foundation of office and industrial-capitalist society

When do you cross the role from boss to fellow human? Is this the cost of civilization?

Narrator finally rejects Bartleby—offers to take Bartleby home but this is impossible—or he’ll lose his own status/livelihood

Why does the narrator reject Bartleby in the end?  Does he reject him?

The narrator at times seems as passive as Bartleby—1) lets him get away with preferring not; 2) moves his office instead of just having B hauled off; 3) dissociated/alienated like B—no life beyond work;

ABSURDITY: lacking meaning, rationality, order

Narrator: “In vain I persisted that Bartleby was nothing to me—no more than to any one else. In vain:—I was the last person known to have any thing to do with him, and they held me to the terrible account.”

“Am I my brother’s keeper?”

Problem of Modern Human in Mass Society—searching for meaning/authenticity/connection—anonymity

Superfluous man/woman—unnecessary person

Ambiguous—“With kings and counselors”—Bartleby at peace?  Or Kings and Counselors as absurd and insignificant as Bartleby? Is the narrator making the reference conscious of the absurdity?

“Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!”  Why does the narrator broaden B to represent humanity?  The problem of literature itself (dead letter vs. living word)  scriveners—dead letters—copy machine of 19^th century

Minister’s Black Veil: “I look around me, and, lo! on every visage a Black Veil."  Condemnation of the false moral/religious front that people wear—it’s a visible symbol of destructiveness of human pride—the denial of mortality—deny his reflection/human body/material world—“Lifting the veil”—spiritual enlightenment (rending the veil)—apocalypse—breaking through material to the spiritual—seeing the face of God

Binary opposition—black veil must have its opposite with whiteness/clarity

Matriarchal/female

Is Elizabeth his angel or his temptation?

Who’s more absurd—Hooper or Bartleby?  The role of choice—deciding to be absurd (Hooper still has the religious belief/system behind his choice—the role of sin in us all; Bartleby—no religion, no belief apparent behind his absurdity)  Hooper more active in his absurdity; Bartleby is passive