Mother Teresa once said, “Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat” (Teresa). Many people in our world are left forgotten in the numerous folds of our world, and those are the people who are the most important to pay attention to. Bartleby is an example of one of these people, someone who becomes poked fun at and sometimes rejected. However, Bartleby pushes on because of a deep devotion to finding his internal world, following through with his actions to his very end. Bartleby can be closely related to Henry David Thoreau’s principles in Resistance to Civil Government as Bartleby takes action in his own hands. Bartleby closely follows Thoreau’s principles in Henry David Thoreau's Resistance to Civil Government as the fulfillment of Bartleby’s spiritual quest surpasses the accomplishment in his physical life because Bartleby passively refuses to complete the tasks of his job, peacefully resists the demands of the narrator and others, and sturdily follows his path in the face of turmoil and discontent from others.
Bartleby follows his desire to fulfill his spiritual quest as he refuses to do his job without budging, causing uproar in the office and showing his devotion to his spiritual needs. Bartleby consistently shows his refusal to complete tasks with his constant counter to demands, “’I would prefer not to’” (Melville 1109). Bartleby shows a very straightforward consistency with his answers, whereas the narrator has great bursts of reaction to Bartleby’s refusal to do work. Bartleby shows a focus of his own needs by staring out the window among other things, rather than bowing down to the needs of his boss. ...
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... communities in America. Most people are more like those who follow the government or other system, voting, but not doing. To fix a wrong in the community, the community must passively resist the needs of the system and find time to act in a way to fight an unjust action.
Works Cited
Melville, Herman. "Bartleby, the Scrivener." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. Shorter 8 ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2012. 112-19. Print.
Teresa, Mother. "“Being Unwanted, Unloved, Uncared For, Forgotten by Everybody, I Think That Is a Much Greater Hunger, a Much Greater Poverty than the Person Who Has Nothing to Eat.”." BrainyQuote. Xplore, 2001. Web. 14 Nov. 2013.
Thoreau, Henry David. "Resistance to Civil Government." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. Shorter 8 ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2012. 112-19. Print.
As I've studied Henry David Thoreau's essay "Resistance to Civil Government," I've identified the persuasive elements and analyzed a specific portion of the text to create my own argument. In this essay, I will discuss the strengths and weaknesses found throughout both responses through the lens of persuasive analysis in order to prove my ability to utilize rhetorical strategies.
Jacobus, Lee A. Henry David Thoreau. "Civil Disobedience." A World Of Ideas: essential readings for college writers. Bedford/St. Martin's, 2002. 141-167
Bartleby demonstrates behaviours indicative of depression, the symptoms he has in accordance with the DSM-IV are a loss of interest in activities accompanied by a change in appetite, sleep, and feelings of guilt (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, 320). Very shortly after Bartleby begins his work as a Scrivener he is described by the narrator as having done “nothing but stand at his window in his dead-wall revery”. (Melville, 126) In contrast, Bartleby had previously been described as a very hard worker and this process of doing increasingly less shows how his a diminishing sense of interest both in his work but also of the perception others have of him. It is also noted that included in this lack of interest is a social withdrawal (DSM—IV, 321) which corresponds well to Bartleby in that his workspace becomes known as his “hermitage”. During small talk which included Bartleby he says that he “would prefer to be left alone”. (Melville, 120) Bartleby only emerges from his hermitage when called upon and quickly returns when faced with confrontation.
In his world-famous thought-provoking novel, Walden, Henry David Thoreau presents his readers with a simple, inspirational guide for living. Written beside the beautiful Walden pond and completely surrounded by an unencumbered natural world, Thoreau writes about his own relationship with the beauty that surrounds him. His book provides an outlet for everyone to learn from his lessons learned in nature, whether they be city-dwellers or his own neighbors. One of Thoreau's most prominent natural lessons running throughout his novel is that of his deeply rooted sense of himself and his connection with the natural world. He relates nature and his experiences within it to his personal self rather than society as a whole. Many times in the novel, Thoreau urges his readers to break away from their societal expectations and to discover for themselves a path that is not necessarily the one most trodden. He explains that everyone should "be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought (341)." Walden inspires its readers to break out of the mold of tradition, away from outwardly imposed expectations, and out of the loyalty to society over loyalty to oneself in order to find truth and self in nature.
In Herman Melville's short story, Bartleby, the Scrivener, the narrator's attitude towards Bartleby is constantly changing, the narrator's attitude is conveyed through the author's use of literary elements such as; diction-descriptive and comical, point of view-first person, and tone-confusion and sadness.
Thoreau, Henry David. Walden and Civil Disobedience. New York: W. Norton & Company, Inc, 1966.
Melville intends something less black and white with more gray shading. Melville uses dramatic irony and grim humor in “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. This is to show the reader how the Lawyer assumes he is a safe, successful and powerful man with extensive control in his polite society until he hires a man named Bartleby. This relationship is slowly revealed to be quite a conundrum for the Lawyer and the reader. Melville shows how the Lawyer never had any power or control over Bartleby but quite the opposite; Bartleby held all the power and control in this relationship. I will explore the important of the power struggle and the fight to maintain control between the Lawyer and Bartleby.
Wendy Galeas Professor Geddes The Study of Literature: Essay 2 April 9, 2015 In Herman Melville’s work “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street”, the idea of a capitalist agenda is intentionally reinforced. This short work tells the story of a lawyer on Wall-Street and those of his employees, but he is particularly fascinated by Bartleby. Bartleby at first a hard worker who divulged tirelessly in his job as a law-copyist begins to “ prefer not” to do what is asked of him.
Bartleby- The Scrivener In Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”, the author uses several themes to convey his ideas. The three most important themes are alienation, man’s desire to have a free conscience, and man’s desire to avoid conflict. Melville uses the actions of an eccentric scrivener named Bartleby, and the responses of his cohorts, to show these underlying themes to the reader. The first theme, alienation, is displayed best by Bartleby’s actions. He has a divider put up so that the other scriveners cannot see him, while all of them have desks out in the open so they are full view of each other, as well as the narrator. This caused discourse with all of the others in the office. This is proven when Turkey exclaims, “ I think I’ll just step behind his screen and black his eyes for him.”(p.2411) The other scriveners also felt alienated by the actions of the narrator. His lack of resolve when dealing with Bartleby angered them because they knew that if they would have taken the same actions, they would have been dismissed much more rapidly. The narrator admits to this when he said, “ With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence.” (2409) The next theme is man’s desire to avoid conflict. The narrator avoids conflict on several occasions. The first time Bartleby refused to proofread a paper, the narrator simply had someone else do it instead of confronting him and re...
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was a philosopher and writer who is well known for his criticism of the American government during the time. During Thoreau’s life, there were two major issues being debated in the United States: slavery and the Mexican-American War. Both issues greatly influenced his essay, as he actually practiced civil disobedience in his own life by refusing to pay taxes in protest of the Mexican War. He states that the government should be based on conscience and that citizens should refuse to follow the law and has the duty not to participate and stay as a member of an unjust institution like the government. I argue that the notion of individualism and skepticism toward government is essential in the basis of many important reform movements in the modern society.
Melville, Herman, and Herman Melville. Bartleby ; And, Benito Cereno. New York: Dover Publications, 1990. Print.
Melville, Herman. “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Nina Baym and Robert S. Levine. Vol. B. New York: Norton, 2012. 1483-1509. Print.
In “Resistance to Civil Government,” Thoreau articulates the importance he places on resistance against a powerful, controlling government. He opens his essay with a reference to the...
My conclusion, then, is that the lawyer strays from the zone of comfort to only lead him back to it. For instance, he does not try to understand Bartleby through Bartleby’s perspective, but he wants to understand who Bartleby is so that Bartleby will conform to the way he is. The lawyer’s empathy that he shows towards Bartleby is not a genuine display for Bartleby, but as a selfish way to restore the order in which he does not have to deal with this conflict.
In this novel, we can see a character resistant to his boss, he refuses to do what he is asked to do. As readers, we are not used to seeing such behavior, we are used to seeing employees respond to their employer by doing the task that he asks us to do. For Bartleby, it is normal for him to decline such job, he does it more than once by saying kindly: “I would prefer not to.” (Par. 22). Liane Norman stated, “In “Bartleby” Melville dramatizes one of the problems of any society, in which the commonly held assumptions of the general good are challenged, and thus threatened, by a man who does not wish to be governed by those assumptions” (22). What she means is that we are not used to seeing someone resistant to his own boss in a job context. In our society, we are used to the “general good” and people tend to follow on that line. Bartleby just does not want to follow rules, he only wants to do what he likes and he does not want to do more than he is asked to. In a way, Bartleby is a lazy person in education we would give him a style of leadership called “Laissez-faire” which Norman emphasized, “expectations and manners of work-a-day laissez-faire democratic and Christian humanism - is bad, in fact their promise is perhaps impossibly idealistic” (22). Society is based on similar values and rules that everyone should follow