Throughout the short story “Bartleby,
The Scrivener” by Herman Melville, the author presented a character of a legal
copier named Bartleby, who goes against the social norms of society. During the
times of the 1800s, an esteem level of power was an essential asset for working
on Wall Street. Bartleby was on the lower end of the power yet, did not want to
conform to the powerless status which he held. Bartleby managed to express this
nonconformity by reflecting his behavior in his work ethic.
Bartleby expresses a behavior of subtle rebellious
nature with his responses and actions to his circumstances. His behavior can be
justifiable as reasonable by considering how he approaches the current social
constructs of Wall Street in the 1800 era. It is possible that Bartleby was
silently making a statement in regaining power when being asked to complete a
task. Whenever being asked to work on a task given to him by his boss, he would
politely say, “I would prefer not to”. He was able to find a way of creating
his own choices by using this phrase. By him politely refusing work with this
statement, it allowed him to not avoid the work but gain control of the work that
was expected of him.
Although, Bartleby chose to act
rebellious by creating a nonexistent choice for the tasks given to him, he
could have also chosen to succumb to the power or caused a bigger issue within the
workplace. The way Bartleby approached his circumstances allowed his boss to try
and look deeper into understanding his past experiences. Even though his boss
did not agree with his work ethic, he found himself intrigued with the resistance
Bartleby portrayed with his work. This behavior confused him and his power. He made
his boss think of him as less of a tool and more of a human being.
In the end, Bartleby was later physically
removed from his positon where he spent the rest of his life in a cell. He was
not completely successful in his approach of rebellion yet, I think the way he
executed his rebellion was what made his response reasonable. If Bartleby were
to react in a more volatile or extreme protest as certain events have shown
during today’s day and age, then Bartley would have not gotten a further
reaction from his boss. He probably would have been detained by the law
enforcements sooner. His subtle reaction made a bigger difference in his
protest and was more appropriate for the time that it occurred.
I really like how you justified Bartleby's actions as a way to dethrone authority in this time period of a social hierarchy. Tying his "prefer not to" to something he can do but will not do in order to undermine the authorities that control him is an interesting aspect. However, I felt as if there could have been more evidence as to why you though Bartleby was trying to undermine authority. In other words how would he benefit in undermining the authority, the employer, who gave him the endless "choices" you pointed out Bartleby wanted.
ReplyDeleteI really like the way you justified Bartleby's behavior. The way you worked in how he was making a statement and creating his own choices through his actions was interesting, so was the connection to his past. I don't think I would have thought of that had I not read your post. However, you could have gone into detail about the social constructs of 1800s Wall Street because from reading this I'm not sure what you're comparing it, too. Additionally, there are several grammar and punctuation errors: e.g. "Bartleby was on the lower end of the power[, yet he] did not want to conform..."; "...he would politely say, 'I would prefer not to[.]'"; and "Throughout the short story[,] 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'." But, overall, your post is insightful.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you said that Bartleby created his own choices by politely refusing to perform the tasks given to him. In a way that does make sense because he created choices for himself when he wasn't supposed to have any. He was expected to carry out the task given to him and "I would prefer not to" should not have been an excuse. In this way, he was able to control what he did and his work instead of being controlled by his employer. Somethings that stood out to me that could be slightly fixed is your topic sentence in the second paragraph. I feel like your topic sentence is a little vague and could more specific to give the readers insight into what you will be talking about in that paragraph. Also, I feel like your thesis could be more specific to say exactly what Bartleby did in the workplace that showed his "nonconformity" to societal norms.
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