I think my reaction to Bartleby's behavior was the same as the guy who never gave us his name.. the narrator. At first I was confused.. "I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties".. that wasn't exactly my thought process, but I get it. I was just kinda like, well.. too bad.
The next time Bartleby "prefer[ed] not to", mystery man just got angry. It's understandable.. Mystery is paying him money to work; it isn't really an option.
Each time he gets frustrated.. but there is something weird happening.. "...there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner touched and disconcerted me" He is so nonchalantly bold, which makes him interesting.
Mystery man makes a lot of allusions to the Bible. John 15:12 talks about loving everyone as Jesus loves us.. unconditionally. Mystery man tries so hard to do this.. He is stuck between business thinking and moral thinking. He needed to get rid of him, because he was only costing him money. He didn't do anything to help. But on the other hand, something seemed really wrong with him, so who else was going to take him in? To love like Jesus mystery man would have had to take him in.. and he tried! "will you go home with me now-not to my office, but my dwelling..." But Bartleby refused.
Maybe Melville is secretly saying that it is impossible to live like Jesus did... or just really really hard.
No comments:
Post a Comment