Bartleby. Oh How I hate you.

So is anyone out there familiar with the story of Bartleby the scrivener? It was written by Melville, you know, that guy who wrote Moby Dick. Ah I see some recognition in your eyes. Now back to Bartleby the scrivener. How I love his story and hate his character. I hate how often my instructors wish me to reflect upon his choices, I hate how easy it was for him to prefer not to, I hate how despite it being considered one of Melville's worst works, it's also considered one of the best. 
I think what I hate most is that people quote Bartleby only when they wish to philosophical and intelligent while at the same point declining your proposition. It irks me the wrong way and always at the worst time. Such as recently, I had been reading Stephen King's Bag of Bones. It had been a delightful tale, though I disagree with some plot choices he makes. The book is several hundred pages long and as I reached the last sentence, there it was. "I've put down my scriviner's pen. These days I prefer not to."  That ruined the entire ending of the book for me. 
I suppose if you kept reading this long you want to know why exactly Bartleby irks me in the wrong way. Here's the way I see Bartleby, it's not about him being a lazy ass and then dying as an end result. Crude I know but I've heard it said that way on many occasions. To me Bartleby is the ever fussing debate of whether the man is brave or is he a coward. He find a point in his life where he decides to defy the social norms via 'preferring not to'. 
I like to argue and conspire with people about this. Is his preferring not to an act of cowardice towards life or is it an ultimate act of defiance?
Think on this, you go to a school where you are required to wear a uniform. You wear plain clothes instead because you prefer not to wear the uniform. Why? Now what? What happens if you go to work and you prefer not to? What happens if all your friends are pressuring you to give it up on the first date and you prefer not to? All of Bartleby's theoretical problems came from him not conforming to the usual standards of society.
Let's shift gears for a moment away from social norms and consequences of not conforming and let's talk about mirrors just briefly. I'm probably not the first and won't be the last to notice this in Bartleby but I think the man functions as a mirror. First the reader identifies with the rejections of values and Bartleby keeps pushing until he reaches the values that the reader isn't will to reject. It allows the reader to be sympathetic to his cause before categorizing it as being unreasonable. 
Now I could keep going from here and whipping out philosophers names and throwing around theories but there is not fun in that for me. I'd rather here from your lot. What do you think on Bartleby? I'm more in the mood to talk philosophy and Bartleby with you than talk to myself about it. If you need acess to a copy of the story it is avalaible legally and free 


http://teacherweb.com/VA/KingGeorgeHighSchool/MrsDibblesEnglishClasses/Bartleby-Scrivener.pdf


Corset feeling all discombobulated today,
Signing off.

Ah Absurdity, my good friend.

So in quoting one of my professors did you wake up today go to leave the house and say "Better take my umbrella in case a whale tries to explode on me today!"  Sounds pretty absurd right? Well let us take a moment to define absurd and we will be quoting Thomas Nagel on this one. "In ordinary life a situations is absurb when it includes a conspicuous discrepancy between pretension or aspiration and reality." Or As he later trims down to, "Some respect in which pretension and reality clash or collide."

Bearing that in mind I am going to start a few day process of trying to take the absurd seriously based off four strategy that I am in the process studying using the following in no particular order::

Schopenhauer- The great turning
Camus - The Embrace
William James- Logotherapy
Herman Melville- being Melville...

All of these will accomplish taking absurdity seriously by combining the meaning or life + Courage.

You know just for absurdity's sake let's start with Melville. Many of you will know him as the man who wrote Moby Dick. Recently he has come into my world as the man who Bartleby the Scrivener. The man who preferred not to. I'm not going to re account the story. It's widely available on the net for free if you want to pause here and go read it, it is fairly short and highly absurd. The real question I want to explore is whether Bartleby is courageous or cowardly and I'm not sure its that simple. You see on the one hand he was defying social norms which does take a great deal of courage but on the other apathy towards the situation can also lead to defying norms.  I'll be honest, everything about this is shaky to me. Trying to put a clear cut line on a vast combination of emotions doesn't lead to the best results. If you think you caught me rambling trying to get you to read a good piece of lit then you caught me. I like reading Melville. Bartleby is by far his best and worst work all rolled into one. I find the story to be one of a man grown apathetic and simple would prefer not to do something more than he would prefer to do it. I find the concept of him wanting to sit on his rump at work doing nothing and getting paid to be absurd but that is social norms talking, or is it survival instinct? If everyone gets something for nothing and no one is doing any work then how do we have anything. Well we don't. So is there a situation where someone who has been working a job for the past 30 years should get to just take the last few off and still show up to work and get paid? If so then who do you expect to pick up their slack? Where is a situation where you can look at your boss or professor and say "I prefer not to." and that be ok?

Liking William James better than Melville,
Corset signing off.