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Christian vs buddhism
Comparing Eastern & Western Religions
Christian vs buddhism
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Buddha Bartleby
Buddhism is currently the fourth most popular religion in our society today, following Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Its major ideologies are based on the philosophies of Siddhartha Guatama, also known as “Buddha”, who began his teachings in 598 BCE at the age of 35, according to Buddhist texts. A Buddhist’s foremost aspiration is the obtainment of Bodhi, or enlightenment through meditation and Anapana-sati (awareness of the breath). Buddhism shares many ideologies with India’s Hinduism and Yoga such as non-harming, non-violence, and self-awareness. In many instances, people regard Buddhism as a way of life rather than a religion, for it has no clear belief in the idea of a God or Gods. Its structure is built upon a hierarchy much like Christianity where superior orders such as Lamas or the Dalai Lama are said to be chosen by nature through the process of reincarnation rather than by a council like Christianity’s Pope. Though these “higher level” Buddhists are rare (not everyone is a reincarnation of an ancient Buddhist “priest”), all are permitted to follow “The Middle Way” either as a Buddhist monk or the simple attendance of a weekly teaching session from time to time. Throughout the last few hundred years the Buddhist population has blossomed into a healthy 381,611,000 and over fifteen different sects including Zen, Mahayana, and Theravada.
For decades scholars and writers have attempted to find the historical analogies and symbolic figures that created Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”. The story describes the setting of a small “law-copyists or scriveners” office on Wall Street and the unexpected arrival of an unknown character named Bartleby (Melville...
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...ningful demise. So this Buddhistic view simply gives us an ideal understanding of Bartleby’s perplexing, meaningless actions and helps us realize that Bartleby might not be as crazy as he seems. He’s just trying to find his way…
Works Cited
Melville, Herman. “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street.” Melville’s Short Novels: Authoritative Texts, Contexts, Criticism. Ed. Dan McCall. New York: Norton, 2002. 3-35.
Franklin, H. Bruce. "Bartleby: The Ascetic's Advent." Melville's Short Novels: Authoritative Texts, Contexts, Criticism. Ed. Dan McCall. New York: Norton, 2002. 176-85.
Sten, Christopher W. "Bartleby the Transcendentalist: Melville's Dead Letter to Emerson." Modern Language Quarterly 35 (1974): 30-44.
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “The Transcendentalist”. EmersonCentral. Nov. 27, 2007. .
Melville, Herman. "Bartleby the Scrivener." The Story and Its Writer. Ed. Ann Charters. Boston: St. Martin's, 1995: 513-539.
The author of the story presents the questions of what is valuable in society and how those that resist these values are dealt with and answers them through Bartleby's actions from his life to his death. Society values things such as money and working to make money where human things such as sentimentalities and emotions are not worth holding onto and when one refuses to work he is left with choices of imprisonment in a cell or imprisonment in a job where Bartleby instead chose to die, to be free of such a world that does not value freedoms and humanity.
In Melville’s, “Bartleby the Scrivener,” a lawyer’s idea of relationships is tested. As a bachelor, his disconnection with people is an obstacle he has to overcome. The relationships between his coworkers and himself are simple and detached until Bartleby is introduced. The lawyer is befuddled at the unique behavior that this character displays and cannot help but take particular interest in him. When Bartleby is asked to work, he simply says, “I would prefer not to,” and when he quits working, he begins to stare at the wall (1112). This wall may symbolize the wall that the lawyer has built up in an attempt to ward off relationships, or it may simple symbolize Wall Street. When the lawyer finds out that Bartleby is l...
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.
...e into his soul in order to help him and possibly to understand him better. " I might give alms to his body; but his body does not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach." (Page134-135, Paragraph 4) This is the real struggle the narrator is facing, the narrator confusion and frustration with Bartleby would all go away if only he knew what was wrong so he could help him but it isn't a physical pain but a spiritual pain in which Bartleby would have to open up in order for the narrator to help. Tone is just one of the literary deceives used that help convey the narrator's attitude towards Bartleby.
Herman Melville uses a first person point of view to show the narrator’s first hand fascination with his employee Bartleby, as well as Bartleby’s strange behavior and insubordination.
Through Bartleby’s flat and static character type, it is amazing how many different types of conflict he causes. From the first order to examine the law copies, to the last request to dine in the prison, Bartleby’s conflictive reply of “I would prefer not to” stays the same (Melville 150). In this way, he is a very simple character, yet he is still very hard to truly understand. Even ...
Wilson, Sarah. "Melville and the Architecture of Antebellum Masculinity." American Literature 76.1 (2004): 59-87. Duke University Press. Web. 24 Nov. 2012.
McCall focuses his argument within the way in which Melville has written Bartleby, The Scrivener, he goes into detail about the comical aspects within the story and uses Melville’s description of Bartleby’s saying “I prefer not to,’ he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly disappeared.” (272). McCall suggests that the adverbs Melville uses, “respectfully” , “slowly” and “mildly” , “create[s] a leisurely little excursion into the uncanny” (279). I agree that the lawyer must have had some wit and good intentions in making the claim about Bartleby up to a point, I cannot accept this fully because many people still believe that the lawyer is unreliable. Most critics within the majority, as McCall reinstates, “believe, “the lawyer is “self-satisfied”, “pompous”…”a smug fool” who is ‘terribly unkind to a very sick man’ “(2660. I disagree with the idea that the lawyer was unkind and Bartleby was sick. The lawyer was fascinated by Bartleby’s responses to the job, and Bartleby, I feel knew exactly what he was doing in stating his responses. McCall acknowledges that “these cure two central problems in the story: the nature of Bartleby’s illness and the lawyer’s capacity to understand it,”
Melville, Herman. "Bartleby the Scrivener." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. New York: Norton & Company, 2003. 2330-2355
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...
Now, reading about humanity as a dismal ruin may seem a bit dramatic and depressing, but it is unfortunately true. Melville was using the character of Bartleby as a symbol for the inevitable fall of humankind in 1853. Today, the same message can be passed through the mysterious character of Bartleby. Times have not changed and the moral values of humans are still showing signs of utter disappointment. “Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!” (Melville 34).
Bartleby who is part of the name of the story is not even considered the “chief character” of the story, but the lawyer (Melville 1484). The narrator repeatedly references different sources such as Cicero, “his biblical evocations” as well as Trinity Church, “his pride of association with John Jacob Astor” (Dilworth 49). He uses them as ways to explain what he did which may interpret “the guilt the lawyer feels”, if that is what he really feels (Dilworth 50). He may or may not feel guilt, but his actions clearly show his selfishness. The lawyer helps Bartleby because he feels pity, he helps him to feel better and to fulfill his self-interest to go to heaven. He was “predestinated from eternity” and Bartleby was his test (Melville 1502). That must clearly be the reason why the “chief character” of the story tries to help Bartleby. He is a business man seeking profit, he may know he ...
One man against the majority population is never a fair match, which brings into question the future of Bartleby. Once before we have questioned the Lawyers actions in the basis of moral and ethical values. The lawyer being the mayor leader in this “story world” that Melville has created, has the final say in Bartleby’s faith. John Matteson in his journal discusses this same issue and explains Bartleby’s faith with the following analysis:
Edgar Allan Poe and Herman Melville are two authors who belong to dark Romanticism. They both have created various works and have different styles of expression. However, their writing can be related with one another at some points. The story of “Bartleby the Scrivener” by Herman Melville begins when a lawyer complains that this profession has took him "into more than ordinary contact with what would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men the law-copyists or scriveners" (Melville 2). Bartleby is a person who is hired by a lawyer; even that he has three other copyists working for him in his office. He always admits to do all the work he is asked, expect one day when he is asked to examine a file Bartleby replies: "I would prefer not to" (Melville 8). At first, that seemed acquitted, but rapidly it becomes a chant. At the other hand, “William Wilson” by Edgar Allan Poe talks about a character that gives everything to fulfill his ambition, who afterward loses his identity and don’t know who he is anymore. The things start getting complicated when he realizes that another person exists with the exact appearance, name, the way of speaking, and even the same birthday as his. Subsequently, William Wilson becomes obsessed with the second William Wilson and at the start they find it hard to ignore each other, while their peers thought that they were brothers. At the end of the story, William Wilson who is angry and annoyed with the other Wilson confronts him, where second William Wilson finds death. The main similarity of the main characters of the stories of “Bartleby the Scrivener” written by Herman Melville and “William Wilson” written by Edgar Allan Poe is because they both are described in the first person. I w...