"Bartleby the Scrivener" is a complex story, so I am going to zero in on one particularly interesting and intelligent aspect of it. Due to the power of the message even this one particular aspect will be complex, of course. The first thing to note is that the story has a first-person narrator. The narrator, an anonymous lawyer, is in fact a major character in his own right. Ostensibly the story is about Bartleby and his actions as a scrivener. However, what the story is really about, in a sense, is the effect Bartleby seems to have on the narrator. We learn a great deal about the narrator, but more importantly, we see him undergo several rather significant changes. These changes bring to light Melville’s comment on the oppression and lack of compassion in the emerging capitalist economy
The narrator's initial self-characterization is important to the story. He is a "safe" man, one who takes few risks and tries above all to conform to societies norms (Melville 1109). The most pragmatic concerns of financial security and ease of life are his priorities. He has made himself perfectly at home in the modern economy: he works as a lawyer dealing with rich men's legal documents. He is therefore a complement or a double to Bartleby in many ways.
Doubling is a recurring theme in "Bartleby the Scrivener." Bartleby is a phantom double of our narrator, and the parallels between them will be explored later. Nippers and Turkey are doubles of each other. Nippers is useless in the morning and productive in the afternoon, while Turkey is drunk in the afternoon and productive in the morning. Nippers' ambition mirrors Turkey's resignation to his place and his sad, uneventful career, the difference coming about because of their respective ages. Nippers cherishes ambitions of being more than a mere scrivener, while the elderly Turkey must plead with the narrator to consider his age when evaluating his productivity. Their vices are also parallel, in terms of being appropriate vices for each man's respective age. Alcoholism is a vice that develops with time. Ambition arguably is most volatile in a man's youth. These characters provide valuable comic relief in what is otherwise a somber and upsetting tale. Melville’s purpose in making Bartleby’s personality act complimentary to the narrator’s is to demonstrate the chang...
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...ience with Bartleby. It is doubtful that the lawyer at the beginning of the story, as he pictured himself, could have imagined such personal tragedies. Here we see the denouement. The culmination of the change that Bartleby has affected in the lawyer.
“Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!” (1134)
This final sentence shows a depth of emotion that would have been impossible for the narrator at the beginning of the story. This obvious change gives readers the evidence that Melville was trying to display in support of his view of the negative aspects of the business world. This world and the humanity in it had affected both characters. Bartleby of course was the employee whose constant bombardment with the uncompassionate and pitiless world of Capitalism caused him to lose desire to think for himself and as a response to do nothing. The narrator was the employer whose use of the repetitive and routine tasks of his profession caused him to lose compassion and responsibility. The change in the narrator that one can see take place over the course of the story brings these traits and the institutions that founded them into glaring clarity.
In the beginning of each story, characters are both shown as “ideal” characters in that their characteristics give the characters their first perceived amiableness. In “Bartleby the Scrivener” Melville uses distinguishing characteristics to solely represent Bartleby from the others in the story. He enters the story first, as a response to an advertisement for a position as a scrivener in a law office. Melville states, “A motionless, young man one morning stood upon my office threshold, the door being open for it was summer. I can see that figure now – pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!” (Meyer 149). Here he makes it known that just by seeing Bartleby’s presence when he first enters the law office; he is exactly what the unnamed lawyer was inquiring about. He was by far unlike other characters in the story. He had no vices or hang ups, the first presence and his stature, he came their wiling and ready to ...
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.
One of the literary elements that Melville uses that convey the narrator's attitude towards Bartleby is diction. The author's diction in this short story is very descriptive and is also slightly comical. One of the ways this is used is when the author gently mocks the narrator by having him expose his flaws through his own words. For example, when the narrator talks of John Jacob Astor, a well respected man who complemented him, we find out how full of himself he is and how highly he thinks of himself. "The late John Jacob Astor, a parsonage little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my first grand point…I will freely add, that I was not insensible to the late John Jacob Astor's good opinion." (Page 122, Paragraph2) Another example of the author's use of diction appears on page 127 in paragraph 2; "At first, Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long famished for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents. There was no pause for digestion. He ran a day and night line, copying by sunlight and by candle-light. I should have been quite delighted with his application, had he been cheerfully industrious. But he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically." Here the narrator's description of Bartleby's writing habits in the office, at first, tell us that he is very pleased with his progress and the work he has done but then it tells us that he is not very enthusiastic but...
The United States Judicial System is made up of several different courts, which includes the federal court system, the state court system, and the local court system. All three of those court systems handle different types of cases and have their internal structures and roles.
The United States district courts are the trial courts. This is where all federal cases are tried. In the United States there are 94 federal judicial districts. Each district court has at least one United States district judge, appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate for a life term.
The Supreme Court is the highest level of the United States Court System. Like all courts, the cases must be based off of actual, concrete disputes. Abstract, hypothetical cases are not accepted. Each case is made up of the plaintiff (Suing) party, and the defendant (Suee? Not the hog call, the one being sued) party, a judge to preside over the session, and the jury of unbiased citizens to decide the fate of the case (Edwards, 505). Unlike many courts, the Supreme Court is limited in the nature of the cases that it can have original jurisdiction over. The U.S. Supreme Court only has original jurisdiction in cases involving foreign
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.
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,”
The federal government and the state government have its own court system. Both the federal and state court system has a hierarchically organized system. Sec.1article III of the constitution created the supreme court of the United States. This paper will compare and contrast the court system of the federal and state government. This paper will also point out the hierarchically structure of them both.
Proverbs 21:15 New Living Translation (NLT) states, “Justice is a joy to the godly, but it terrifies evildoers.” With that being said, there are “94 district courts, 13 circuit courts, and one Supreme Court throughout the country.” The court systems are not in place to be abused by the representative nor those that are looking for assistance. The court systems exist to provide justice for all.
The federal court system has three main levels: District Courts, Circuit Courts of Appeals and the Supreme Court. Through out the nation there are 94 district courts, 13 circuit courts and one Supreme Court (“The United States Department of Justice - United States Attorney's Office”). During the early days of the Federal Convention in 1787, the delegates all agreed on a plan for the government that will include national judiciary (“History of the Federal Judiciary”). Article III, in the Constitution, is the shortest article that established the institution of the government. Even though the article is very brief, it shows the judiciary to resolve different kinds of cases (including the ones that the United States is a party in implementing laws) like arguments of citizens of two or more states. (Magleby 379)
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...
ruled by a similar group to that of our Supreme Court because, the members of
United States has to have state supreme courts and one federal supreme court. It says in the
There have been many stories in the past stating that innocent people have lost their life because of the death penalty. Mistakes happen and false rulings may be made, but the life of another person will still be taken away. Human beings run the judicial system and all human beings are subject to making mistakes. “The best way to ensure the protection of innocents is to replace the death penalty with the sentence of life in prison with no possibility of parole” (Williams 5). Some people wouldn’t agree with life without parole because it’s still giving the murder a gift to stay alive. If someone is on death row, his or her case should be looked over to ensure that they are guilty. Within four years of the starting the death penalty, several hundred people had been sentenced to death. Since 1973, hundreds of people have been released from death rows in 26 states because of innocence.