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Bartleby, the Scrivener A Tale of Wall Street"
an outline

• deals with issues of isolation, free-will
  alienation in business practices perhaps a
  counter to the Transcendentalist ability to see
  and be self-reliant
• puns safe, wall, use (what's the use), usage,
  will.

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I. Introduction

• No materials for satisfactory biography
• of whom nothing is ascertainable-- nothing is
  what you ascertain
• the next sentence that is all I know of him,
  except, indeed, one vague report which will
  appear in the sequel. Hearsay--Do lawyers depend
  on it?
• narrator introduces himself. Tells us hes a
  safe man (pun), seldom loses his temper.

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Intro contd

• Lives at No. _____ Wall Street, his office is
  deficient in life. Brick wall view (857).
• useful -- are humans valued according to their
  use-value, measured in terms of what they
  produce? How you treat humans depends on how you
  view them. If you view in terms of what they are
  useful for . . .
• learn what he does title hunter, deeds for
  property transfers
• Nippers doesn't know what he wanted doesn't
  know his preferences. Turkey is up when hes
  down.

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II. Honeymoon

• Bartleby appears (860) walls and the view.
  Bartleby looks out the window but there is a
  building.
• Partition that separates him from the other
  employees, and one from the lawyer.
• Hes an excellent worker. Learn about proofing
  copy. This is an activity that Byron would not
  want to engage in. Silent and mechanical.

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III. The Initial Shock

• disbelief --anger--disarmed--appeal to others
  What do you mean?
• If there was anything human about him, I would
  have fired him. What is human? Proofing copy in
  these conditions? Impertinent, but he is polite.
  
• Common usage (how people are used) also
  word-usage.
• Appeal to others Am I not right? Peer pressure,
  but also because he doubts himself.
• Bartleby is always there, but ginger-nuts do
  not define him.

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IV. Second Wave

• What does he eat? Ginger-nuts. Hmm, ginger is
  spicy, Bartleby's not spicy. Cause and effect
  not there. passive resistance.
• Humor him. He has nowhere to go and he is useful
  to me. Besides, this will prove a sweet morsel
  for my conscience. (864)

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V. Sunday Morning

• Unmanned him.
• Finds his things. What poverty. What solitude.
  Melancholy overtakes him. Sons of Adam.
• Looks in his desk. Detective
• His soul suffered his soul I could not reach.
  -- free himself from guilt or genuine empathy?
  (867)

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VI. Contagion

• Personal questions Will you tell me where you
  were born? (changes the question) What is your
  answer . . .
• language enters the conscience, psyche. Is
  Bartleby saving the others? They have a choice?
• I will not is to commit
• I prefer not to not let your words commit you.
  Keeps turning the question back on the asker.
• Im not particular to . . . -- Negates his
  earlier claim to preferences (Im not particular
  to this or that) but also Im not a specific
  case? Im not unique.
• Susceptible neither to the aims of society nor
  his own passions.

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VII. Millstone (burden)

• stops writing. His eyes go bad. Do you not see
  for yourself -- He cant see in the
  transcendental sense. All he sees is walls.
• assume -- assumptions and preferences
• assumptions dont work out in practice assume as
  in to take on responsibility
• Six days to clear out. Gives him , murder?
  (873) He dont mean anything -- he harbors no
  ill-will, but also he cant be interpreted
• predestined, there is no free-will (you dont
  have choices)
• What is my responsibility toward him? What
  would you do? (874)

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VIII. The Move and the Reconciliation

• The man comes to visit him. Hes not my
  responsibility. "He's nothing to me"
• Im not particular -- Offers him a series of
  jobs
• (876) Will you come home with me

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IX. The Tombs

• I know you and I want nothing to say to you
  (I want you to know nothingness)
• Its better here. There is grass and sky. They
  feed you.

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X. Sequel

• Awakened your curiosity. Im unable to gratify
  it. Dead letters.
• Whats the point? What does it matter? All
  messages, all hope ends up in the waste basket?
• The story undermines any answer. The lawyer
  becomes as irrational in his response and search
  for an answer (Ahab).

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Meaning???

• How influences the what. Why begin as he does?
  Biography. Write biography about things that are
  explicable. Variation on the kind of story
  Franklin tells. Mostly chronological. Doesn't
  really stop to reflect.
• Could Bartleby save him? Shakes the narrator out
  of his snug retreat. He has to make hard
  choices. Ask questions, to seek things out.
  Left with why, but that's an OK place to be.
  Better than safe. Story about interpretation
  (the white whale). There is something behind the
  wall, but we may never find it. Theres the rub
  you have to keep asking.