Bartleby
Hard working, strict, and being a provider for your society is the definition of the American/Puritan society. If one was to be asked to do work in the Puritan era, that person would have done it because they feared the consequences which were usually some type of isolation. That person also respected the work and who asked them to do it but in "Bartleby, The Scrivener", the whole work ethic was joked about in a sarcastic way. A character named Bartleby who, through the entire story, refuses to do work when asked to do so and receives no punishment from his boss except isolation. Work ethic was important in the Puritan era and isolation was the consequence when one would not have any and that was the case in "Bartleby, The Scrivener." Bartleby's character can be interpreted in a different way. Bartleby has low self esteem, and isolation issues. He has chosen to take a standpoint of not really having one. He refuses to work, but he refuses in a polite manner, by saying "I prefer not to." This tells us that Bartleby may feel inferior and that he can not accomplish the work to the standards give
The consequences of isolation also show when he was described as having a pale and thin appearance. Bartleby's honest rejection of free enterprise is never sadly spoken but he foreshadows the opposite of free enterprise through his actions. These actions being so different from the Puritan era shows how much people have changed and how they don't fear the consequences and also how maybe people like to be isolated now. The highly populated country that we all live in today is very similar to this story because the importance of today is still placed on the product rather than the person. " The author makes it as if the narrator is trying to push Bartleby away, but the more the narrator pushes him away he gets closer to Bartleby. Still further to satisfactory arrangement, I procured a green folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from my sight. It would disagree with me; I am unused to dinners" Is a quote that shows Bartleby's refusal to eat reinforces his decision to make his own choices rather than have them made for him. Bartleby goes on in the story because he likes the way he lives life and he knows something about life that others don't but he is destroyed before the readers could find what but the audience still cheer him on. While it may seem perfectly obvious to most of us that the narrator goes out of his way to be sensitive to Bartleby's needs, beginning with the narrator's allowing him to refrain from certain duties, to refraining from all his duties, to letting him make his office his lodgings, to offering him beyond what he owes Bartleby and securing him another position, to even inviting him to live with him in the lawyer's own home the narrator perhaps does this to express the concept that the feelings Bartleby experiences are common among everyone, but its just not acted upon or openly demonstrated. "Bartleby, The Scrivener" relates to our present day work and to the Puritan society situations and world because in today's society men and women are becoming more isolated then ever from the rest of the world. Readers cheer as he refuses to continue with his work each time but as he rejects his activities, the office grows and he becomes a threat to the authority structure that surrounds it. The audience learns that Bartleby does not eat full meals, just Ginger cakes and other snacks.
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