http://kirabear.blogspot.com/2012/07/bartleby-scrivener.html
http://kirabear.blogspot.com/2012/06/summary-vs-analysis.html
http://kirabear.blogspot.com/2012/06/response-to-swift.html
These are my favorite assignments because my post on Batleby the Scrivener let me pick a specific scene to pick apart the meaning. The summary vs analysis was a lot of fun using slideshare and learning the differences between summary and analysis. Last the response to Swift because I did a video which I did over and over again, It made me feel like I was on the spotlight.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Reflection of course
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What I learned in English 102
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My best essay, #2
Kira Penrod
English 102
Laura Cline
5, July 2012
Bartleby, The Scrivener
Bartleby, the Scrivener is a unique story with very many different meanings, or outlooks. The way I best interpret the story is that Bartleby is a double for the narrator in Melville’s story, showing the dark ineffectiveness of the lawyer’s sense of Christian charity and the absurdity of his work. Melville is a kind man who over and over again tries to help Bartleby, but the more he tries the more he realizes “that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder” (Melville 12). In all actuality Melville is referring to himself.
When Melville first sees Bartleby, he seems perfect, “padillary neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!”(Melville 5). Which Melville was also like, because of the way Melville judges his other scriveners in the story; such as Turkey who did not dress well and Melville offered a jacket to, and Nippers who did dress well described on page 4 of the story. Even though Bartleby seems perfect, besides being pale and thin, he is tired and sad. Melville thinking he is going to have a right hand man finds out Bartleby “would prefer not to”(Melville 6). At first this making Melville very angry, “but there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner touched and disconcerted me” (Melville 7). Melville is holding back on his anger towards Bartleby because he is the same, or wishes to be the same for Melville states, “I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best” (1). So he himself wanted to use those same words “I prefer not to” from time to time.
Bartleby in this story is a young version of who Melville is. Bartleby started off doing so much work but didn’t seem to enjoy it, “he wrote on silently, paley, mechanically” (Melville 5). Then he decided not to do any work at all, just be at work doing nothing. Melville relates to Bartleby very much here because Melville got the job where he “never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in a cool tranquility of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men’s bonds and mortgages and title-deeds” (Melville 1). How can Melville be angry with Bartleby when Bartleby is just like him. Maybe Bartleby is him and maybe Melville is starting to get dementia or lose his mind from old age.
Melville explains, “I observed that he never went to dinner; indeed that he never went anywhere” (Melville 8). There is no possible way someone could survive off of not eating. Bartleby is a made up person to Melville who has been overworked so many years by the same boring job. If Bartleby were real, his co-workers would be very angry about having to work and Bartleby not working; but they seem to be playing along for Melville’s sake of embarrassment. When Melville asks Nippers what he thinks about Bartleby refusing the second time to do work; Nippers replies “excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quite unusual, and indeed unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may be only a passing whim” (Nippers 9). Nippers is telling Melville what he wants to here, and mildly putting it as, it is in your own mind and will pass, towards Melville. Turkey and Nippers would find a way to push Bartleby out or quit doing work themselves if Bartleby were real. Melville is trying to fight himself, Bartleby. He has worked hard his whole life and now he prefers not to.
Melville is finding himself using those same words “I would prefer not to,” along with his co-workers. As soon as he realized this Melville knew Bartleby was a part of him, Melville explains “and I trembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already and seriously affected me in a mental way” (Melville 13). Now that these words have affected Melville, Turkey and Nippers seem to have a little fun with it themselves. After Melville asks them to withdraw, Turkey says “Oh, certainly, sir, if you prefer that I should” (14). Then Nippers saw him and asked “whether he would prefer to have a certain paper copied on blue paper or white”(Nippers 14). Melville himself came up with these words, Bartleby being a part of Melville. Now Melville is in desperation to get rid of this other part of him, Bartleby, but it is an inner struggle.
The depression, sadness, lack of motivation, and fear of change is taking over Melville. He is trying to separate the good Christian man from his other form Bartleby. Maybe if Melville ignores Bartleby he will leave “I might enter my office in a great hurry, and pretending not to see Bartleby at all walk straight against him as if he were air” (Melville 17).When Melville makes his drastic change to move his office, Bartleby still follows Melville. Melville’s inner thoughts remind him of his responsibility, but in the form of another lawyer. The lawyer telling Melville “you are responsible for the man you left there” (20) in the old office. It is not working for Melville to run away from his problems at the work place. Melville’s home must be a secure place in his mind, even though he tries to bring his problem home it doesn’t work. Bartleby states “No; at present I prefer not to make any change at all”(21). In Melville’s mind this was a way for him to leave his crazy work life at work.
Finally Melville is able to get rid of Bartleby forever but he is hesitant saying “these tidings had a conflicting effect on me. At first I was indignant; but at last almost approved” (Melville 22). While Bartleby was put away with force Melville felt he could move on and finally this part of Melville dies forever, when he discovers Bartleby dead in the corner of the jail yard. After the death of Bartleby Melville finds out that “Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in administration” (Melville 24). This change obviously devastated Bartleby, the same as when Melville remembers his “good old office, now extinct in the state of New York”(Melville 2). In the end Bartleby worked for no purpose because he worked for a Dead Letter Office, making him a dead man, Melville being the same.
http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&biw=1600&bih=715&tbm=isch&tbnid=k3S5Tpm1E6qhJM:&imgrefurl=http://wolcottwheeler2.blogspot.com/2007/03/herman-melvilles-bartleby-scrivener-who.html&docid=uKZKLkrRxtN_iM&imgurl=http://bp3.blogger.com/_AkHeUaEva5k/Rf-JB_yrENI/AAAAAAAABcc/1SNkmXmyiSs/s400/Bartleby_the_Scrivener_and_Other_Stories_The_Lightning-Rod_Man_The_Bell-Tower_Herman_Melville_unabridged_CDs_Naxos.jpg&w=400&h=382&ei=4ZkTUJzBLcnDrQHFp4CQBQ&zoom=1
Works cited:
Melville, Herman. “Bartleby, the Scrivener.”A story of wall street,1853. Bartleby.com. web. 29, June 2012.http://www.bartleby.com/129/
English 102
Laura Cline
5, July 2012
Bartleby, The Scrivener
Bartleby, the Scrivener is a unique story with very many different meanings, or outlooks. The way I best interpret the story is that Bartleby is a double for the narrator in Melville’s story, showing the dark ineffectiveness of the lawyer’s sense of Christian charity and the absurdity of his work. Melville is a kind man who over and over again tries to help Bartleby, but the more he tries the more he realizes “that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder” (Melville 12). In all actuality Melville is referring to himself.
When Melville first sees Bartleby, he seems perfect, “padillary neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!”(Melville 5). Which Melville was also like, because of the way Melville judges his other scriveners in the story; such as Turkey who did not dress well and Melville offered a jacket to, and Nippers who did dress well described on page 4 of the story. Even though Bartleby seems perfect, besides being pale and thin, he is tired and sad. Melville thinking he is going to have a right hand man finds out Bartleby “would prefer not to”(Melville 6). At first this making Melville very angry, “but there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner touched and disconcerted me” (Melville 7). Melville is holding back on his anger towards Bartleby because he is the same, or wishes to be the same for Melville states, “I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best” (1). So he himself wanted to use those same words “I prefer not to” from time to time.
Bartleby in this story is a young version of who Melville is. Bartleby started off doing so much work but didn’t seem to enjoy it, “he wrote on silently, paley, mechanically” (Melville 5). Then he decided not to do any work at all, just be at work doing nothing. Melville relates to Bartleby very much here because Melville got the job where he “never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in a cool tranquility of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men’s bonds and mortgages and title-deeds” (Melville 1). How can Melville be angry with Bartleby when Bartleby is just like him. Maybe Bartleby is him and maybe Melville is starting to get dementia or lose his mind from old age.
Melville explains, “I observed that he never went to dinner; indeed that he never went anywhere” (Melville 8). There is no possible way someone could survive off of not eating. Bartleby is a made up person to Melville who has been overworked so many years by the same boring job. If Bartleby were real, his co-workers would be very angry about having to work and Bartleby not working; but they seem to be playing along for Melville’s sake of embarrassment. When Melville asks Nippers what he thinks about Bartleby refusing the second time to do work; Nippers replies “excuse me, that is for you to decide, sir. I think his conduct quite unusual, and indeed unjust, as regards Turkey and myself. But it may be only a passing whim” (Nippers 9). Nippers is telling Melville what he wants to here, and mildly putting it as, it is in your own mind and will pass, towards Melville. Turkey and Nippers would find a way to push Bartleby out or quit doing work themselves if Bartleby were real. Melville is trying to fight himself, Bartleby. He has worked hard his whole life and now he prefers not to.
Melville is finding himself using those same words “I would prefer not to,” along with his co-workers. As soon as he realized this Melville knew Bartleby was a part of him, Melville explains “and I trembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already and seriously affected me in a mental way” (Melville 13). Now that these words have affected Melville, Turkey and Nippers seem to have a little fun with it themselves. After Melville asks them to withdraw, Turkey says “Oh, certainly, sir, if you prefer that I should” (14). Then Nippers saw him and asked “whether he would prefer to have a certain paper copied on blue paper or white”(Nippers 14). Melville himself came up with these words, Bartleby being a part of Melville. Now Melville is in desperation to get rid of this other part of him, Bartleby, but it is an inner struggle.
The depression, sadness, lack of motivation, and fear of change is taking over Melville. He is trying to separate the good Christian man from his other form Bartleby. Maybe if Melville ignores Bartleby he will leave “I might enter my office in a great hurry, and pretending not to see Bartleby at all walk straight against him as if he were air” (Melville 17).When Melville makes his drastic change to move his office, Bartleby still follows Melville. Melville’s inner thoughts remind him of his responsibility, but in the form of another lawyer. The lawyer telling Melville “you are responsible for the man you left there” (20) in the old office. It is not working for Melville to run away from his problems at the work place. Melville’s home must be a secure place in his mind, even though he tries to bring his problem home it doesn’t work. Bartleby states “No; at present I prefer not to make any change at all”(21). In Melville’s mind this was a way for him to leave his crazy work life at work.
Finally Melville is able to get rid of Bartleby forever but he is hesitant saying “these tidings had a conflicting effect on me. At first I was indignant; but at last almost approved” (Melville 22). While Bartleby was put away with force Melville felt he could move on and finally this part of Melville dies forever, when he discovers Bartleby dead in the corner of the jail yard. After the death of Bartleby Melville finds out that “Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in administration” (Melville 24). This change obviously devastated Bartleby, the same as when Melville remembers his “good old office, now extinct in the state of New York”(Melville 2). In the end Bartleby worked for no purpose because he worked for a Dead Letter Office, making him a dead man, Melville being the same.
http://www.google.com/imgres?hl=en&biw=1600&bih=715&tbm=isch&tbnid=k3S5Tpm1E6qhJM:&imgrefurl=http://wolcottwheeler2.blogspot.com/2007/03/herman-melvilles-bartleby-scrivener-who.html&docid=uKZKLkrRxtN_iM&imgurl=http://bp3.blogger.com/_AkHeUaEva5k/Rf-JB_yrENI/AAAAAAAABcc/1SNkmXmyiSs/s400/Bartleby_the_Scrivener_and_Other_Stories_The_Lightning-Rod_Man_The_Bell-Tower_Herman_Melville_unabridged_CDs_Naxos.jpg&w=400&h=382&ei=4ZkTUJzBLcnDrQHFp4CQBQ&zoom=1
Works cited:
Melville, Herman. “Bartleby, the Scrivener.”A story of wall street,1853. Bartleby.com. web. 29, June 2012.http://www.bartleby.com/129/
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