Wall Street Pragmatism vs George Bailey's Self-Sacrifice

Here, the Narrator tries to justify that morality need only stretch so far and “beyond that point” that there is nothing to be done. Whereas that point where “common sense bids the soul be rid of it” does not exist for the authentic George Bailey, the Narrator’s Wall Street ethics are artificial and self-serving. As such, the Narrator’s overtly pragmatic approach to morality on Wall Street counters George Bailey’s self-sacrificing approach Capra conveys in Bedford Falls. Through this pragmatic approach, the Narrator sees charity as an opportunity for protecting himself: “Aside from higher considerations, charity often operates as a vastly wise and prudent principle – a great safeguard to its possessor” (Melville 93). While the Narrator recognizes

that it is important to appear good, this ethical value is artificial and in the end, the Narrator’s surface level morality cannot save Bartleby.
Strangely huddled at the base of the wall, his knees drawn up and lying on his side, his head touching the cold stones, I saw the wasted Bartleby. But nothing stirred. I paused, then went close up to him, stooped over, and saw that his dim eyes were open…Something prompted me to touch him. I felt his hand, when a tingling shiver ran up my arm and down my spine to my feet. (Melville 33)
The Narrator is compelled to visit Bartleby at the jail, arguably the same place George might have ended up had Capra further carried out his time in Pottersville.

Bartleby’s wasting away strikes a chord with the Narrator as he cries out, “Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity,” drawing the connection between the two (Melville 34). The Narrator’s desperate cry exposes the far-reaching significance of Bartleby and the fate his passing indicates for the rest of humanity. For this reason, I contend that pigeonholing Melville’s “Bartleby, The Scrivener” into a series on analogies for the Occupy movement is an unethical misuse of Melville’s short story. One analogy Castronovo points to is charity: “Like the scrivener who refuses the narrator’s charity because its ultimate goal is to justify the system for accruing wealth that the lawyer represents, the occupiers…proved uninterested in reforms that seemed intended merely to ensure that the financial system could go on functioning as before” (Castronovo 253). Bartleby’s ethics are not nearly as explicit as the occupiers and to allege that he refuses the Narrator’s charity for the same reasons as them, simplifies Melville’s purpose for Bartleby; his wasting away cannot be analogous with the occupier’s simply being

uninterested.
Overall, Capra and Melville agree that people judge one another based on how they perceive their ethical value. Yet, in Capra’s Pottersville and Melville’s Wall Street, where ethics have completely evaporated, the use for a George Bailey character is unclear. Capra argues that there is hope for authentic ethics in George keeping Bedford Falls from turning into Pottersville, but fails to address what to do in the places where Pottersville is already the reality like on Melville’s Wall Street. George Bailey achieves his wonderful life by his strong ethical value through which he sacrifices his own wants for the sake of the Bedford Falls community. In this wonderful life, Capra illuminates that the good in the moral life is the way in which it connects people to one another. Instead, Melville suggests that there is only artificial ethics for the Narrator on Wall Street. When the Narrator touches Bartleby, he describes the human touch as alien: “I felt his hand, when a tingling shiver ran up my arm and down my spine to my feet” (Melville 33). Had Melville presented a reversal of Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life, he might have shown the ethical town Wall Street once was filled with a congenial Narrator and Bartleby relationship. Castronovo suggests this return to ethics in his “Occupy Bartleby” critical essay, where some aim to solve the issues in the 1853 short story that still exist today. While Capra’s happy ending is feel-good, it is not very convincing; is one to assume that Pottersville will merely come to exist after George lives out his life and dies? The Bedford Falls of the world might be a dying breed, but Melville and the Occupy movement imply that Wall Street is as well; with Wall Street’s George Bailey as Bartleby, people will reconsider their ethics and the future of humanity.