Friday, October 19, 2007

Bartleby, a satire

Melville’s use of a satire in “Bartleby the Scrivener” intends to show the reader, or expose to the reader, that nobody can follow through with the beliefs of Transcendentalism 100%. Melville’s mocking tone reveals that one cannot live within himself, and that is shown by Bartleby’s stubbornness and tranquility (Oliver 66). An example is made known in that “a pale scrivener, by the name of Bartleby, had a desk there; that he copied for me…; but he was permanently exempt from examining the work done by him and that even if entreated to take upon him such a matter, it was generally understood that he would ‘prefer not to’ ” (qtd. in Oliver 68). Bartleby is shown living within himself in tranquility and showing the stubbornness that he had in “preferring not to”. In addition to the mocking tone that he uses, Melville also uses the narrator to show his thoughts of Bartleby through a Dark Romantic’s view (Oliver 72). This particular method is effective in that it lets the reader decide how they think about Bartleby through a narrator who has similar thoughts as Melville. A situation where this happens is when after the narrator questions and asks him to leave and take up another job, he “effectually [dodged] every one by the suddenness and rapidity of [his] flight, rushed from the building, ran up Wall-Street towards Broadway, and jumping into the first omnibus was soon removed from pursuit” (Melville 38). Melville is intrigued by such a man as Bartleby but is soon unwilling to stay near him because of his independent course of actions (Oliver 73).

1 comment:

Gabriella Chavez said...

Hey Andrew,
I like your essay and how you used many quotes from Oliver's critical analysis to support your ideas. :)