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

1. “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.

2. 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 he’s a safe man (pun), seldom loses his temper.

3. Intro – cont’d • 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 he’s down.

4. 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. • He’s an excellent worker. Learn about proofing copy. This is an activity that Byron would not want to engage in.Silent and mechanical.

5. 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.

6. 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)

7. 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)

8. 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. • “I’m not particular to . . . ” -- Negates his earlier claim to preferences (I’m not particular to this or that) but also I’m not a specific case? I’m not unique. • Susceptible neither to the aims of society nor his own passions.

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

10. VIII. The Move and the Reconciliation • The man comes to visit him. He’s not my responsibility. "He's nothing to me" • “I’m not particular” -- Offers him a series of jobs • (876) “Will you come home with me”

11. IX. The Tombs • “I know you” “and I want nothing to say to you” (I want you to know nothingness) • It’s better here. There is grass and sky. They feed you.

12. X. Sequel • Awakened your curiosity. I’m unable to gratify it. Dead letters. • What’s 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).

13. 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. There’s the rub: you have to keep asking.