Bartelby
"Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance." (13) This is so because there is nothing a rational person can do to combat a passive message. Should a group of people decide not to eat until their government complies with their demands, the government will feel the need to comply from a humanitarian stand point. There is nothing else that the government can do to prevent the death of its citizens and that would simply be unacceptable in the global spectrum of sociological science. The problem with passive resistance, however, is its failure to be recognized.Melville's Bartleby has a purpose rooted deeply in this as its main character attempts to enlighten the working population to the indefinite strife of low level employees. Bartleby the man is opposing the monotony of life in a work place where production equals success. Essentially a talking Xerox machine, the scrivener uses passive means of resistance to make his main and is fellow subordinates understand the faults in their way of life. Melville does this by taking the downfalls of what was then modern day Wall Street and challenge them with title character's actions. As an employee whose only responsibilities included cop
Bartleby, however, had become such a fixture in his office, and therefore his life, that simply dismissing him or having the police take him away would not have been an acceptable means of separation for the narrator. Could Bartleby have been that unusual that something in his being, some distant echo in the scrivener's sole, was too much for his employer to bear? He essentially came out of nowhere to solve the narrator's inconsistent copying problem. The fact that he "...did an extraordinary quantity of writing [at first]... [Running] a day and night line, copying by daylight and candlelight. I [the narrator] should have been quite delighted with his application had he been cheerfully industrious, but he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically." (9) Throughout the pages transcribed and the incalculable hours spent, Bartleby remained as yet another employee. The change in him resonated like shot. "I would prefer not to." (10) As quickly as it was said, the entire complexion of Melville's office society was wrenched into something entirely different. "I [the narrator] sat a while in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties... my ears had deceived me or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my meaning..." (10) In a place where personal preference is limited to the angle which a scrivener writes or the number of ginger nuts he sends for, preferring not to comply with a simple part of one's job description could be considered a capitol offense. "With any other man I [the narrator] should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence. But there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but, in a wonderful manner, touched and disconcerted me." (Melville, 11) martyr, his message is carried on. This narrative could be called the legend of Bartleby, as his message continues to be read and discussed over a century af
Some common words found in the essay are:
Ginger Nut, Wall Street, Unlike Franklin, Melville's Bartleby, Legend Bartleby, Benjamin Franklin, Chancellery York, passive resistance, legend bartleby, law office, scrivener simply, franklin narrator, passive means, wall street,
Approximate Word count = 1306
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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