Sunday, February 19, 2012

Close Reading of Bartleby



“Now, the utterly unsurmised appearance of Bartleby, tenanting my law-chambers of a Sunday morning, with his cadaverously gentlemanly nonchalance, yet withal firm and self-possessed, had such a strange effect upon me, that incontinently I slunk away from my own door, and did as desired. But not without sundry twinges of impotent rebellion against the mild effrontery of this unaccountable scrivener. Indeed, it was his wonderful mildness chiefly, which not only disarmed me, but unmanned me, as it were. For I consider that one, for the time, is a sort of unmanned when he tranquilly permits his hired clerk to dictate to him, and order him away from his own premises.” (Melville NP)

Melville, Herman. Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street. 1853



The story of the Scrivener has some literary foreshadowing.  I found Melville’s use of words very interesting. Melville uses “Cadaverously” which foreshadows the death of Bartleby in the last couple of paragraphs. The deathly persona Bartleby puts off makes the propriator enough that even though Bartleby is his employee, and has no business being there, he lets it slide. The “sundry twinges” are his discomfort with death or deathly character talking to him and making him do its will. Death can “unman” a man, make him feel like an uneasy child.

In my opinion Bartleby probably was displaying symptoms of schizophrenia. Which on set can come in early adulthood. For more information on schizophrenia click HERE


Picture From: http://technorati.com/women/article/death-by-liposuction/


         

3 comments:

  1. Really great post, I totally didn't understand this story until the end of it. You picked some really good quotes from the story and I like the one Death can "unman" a man, make him feel like an uneasy child.

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  2. You did a really good job on your post; you talked about things that I didn't even notice in the text. I didn't realize the foreshadowing until you brought it up in this post, but it is definitely true. He does go into this deathly state before he actually dies and it could be very true that he was showing signs of some mental illness.

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  3. I liked your post. It was sort of confusing on what to take on the behavior of Bartleby. I do agree with "death can "unman" a man. the early onsets of depression or could very well be schizophrenia, I have seen take a person into complete solitude that they have no interest at all in communication or relation to anyone. This story seemed that he was wanting to die or discommunicate himself from the world.

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