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