bartleby and the problem of 'doing good'

Most popular novels, especially those of pre-Modernism, function karmaically; if a certain character is particularly nasty, they will most likely either be cast as the vilan, or meet a spiraling, doom-ridden ending. However, in Bartleby, our main protagonist is plagued from the start with malfortune, in the form of the omniprescent, chillingly apathetic Bartleby. The narrator and protagonist is only fleetingly described as being a "rather elderly man" and one who "has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best." With this introduction to the story, we are set up, as readers, to expect the traditional lazy man's tale; character is shown the misgivings of his lazy lifestyle, changes, grows, etc. However, Melville takes us on a sharply different route; instead of writing a story about the depths and trials of the narrator's life, he has the narrator reflect outwards, onto the character of Bartleby. Here is presented the main conflict of the story; the difference between doing good and being good. Our narrator, at least at the beginning, is convinced that Bartleby is a soul worth saving, and that by allowing Bartleby to continue to work, our narrator will, as he says " prove a sweet morsel for [his] conscience." Returning to the karmaic principles I mentioned before, the reader might expect that either Bartleby will concede and either leave or quit his odd defiance, or the narrator will crack, flying into a rampage or reverting into himself. However, the two of them continue on in an odd sort of dance, neither of them backing down from their stances, and thus neither of them earning higher moral standing. This is where the idea of "being good" comes into play; throughout the novel, the narrator is portrayed as he who is doing good, as he is allowing Bartleby to remain in his office and, quite frankly, being too polite about it. However, is he, innately, good because of this? Or is it Bartleby, who remains static and completely within himself? This is an interesting narrative tactic; because Bartleby says almost nothing, the reader must base all assumptions on what is told or described of him. With our narrator, what we know of him is based primarily on his own thoughts about himself, and whether or not he is making the right choice. Therefore, Melville has set up two opposites; one who overshares, and one who doesn't relate to the external world at all. It is almost impossible for the narrator to "do good" for Bartleby, when Bartleby is so closed off to all others that neither we, nor the narrator, can access his value code to know how to do good for him. This is why the story does not follow the traditional, cause and effect tradition of others; the two main characters are locked in a stalemate, making it impossible for the story to unravel.

I am still planning on writing my essay about the nature of disability, but I have narrowed the focus so I am solely discussing Hope Leslie and Rappaccini's Daughter, and further, Magawisca and Beatrice. The primary theme I will be examining is "otherness;" how the notions of family, tribe and nation affect how these characters' notions of self and how they project these onto their personal relationships. Both characters have strong, omniprescent relationships with their fathers, and I will examine and compare how and if these are directly related to their supposed "disabilities," and how their relationships with their fathers are very causally and symbolically related to their physical shortcomings. Certainly in Rappacini's Daughter, Beatrice's father has not only created her disability, but is her disability. I found the essay "Allegory and Incest in Rappacini's Daughter" by Oliver Evans very illuminating. I will also examine both characters' notions of "womanhood," and how they are affected or stunted by their disabilities. I have found Judith Fetterly's "My Sister! My Sister! The Rhetoric of ... Hope Leslie" helpful, in that she analyzes very effectively Sedgewick's careful construction of the text, and how womanhood is portrayed therein. I will (perhaps finally) discuss the notion of "freedom" and how, though each respective character is held back by some other factor other than their disability (the garden, her race, etc), their self becomes the true barrier between them and the outside world.

Augustine St.Clare seems to be a relic from the late Victorian era; he is hedonistic to the point of recklessness, eschewing church and the mundane profession of religion for the joy of drink and play. This is, of course, to be expected of someone who takes such great pleasure from material, sensual things. The intricacies of his character come about in his dealings with slaves; or, as he prefers to call them, servants. In his long conversation (or perhaps more fittingly, tirade) with Miss Ophelia, St. Clare asks Ophelia if she "ever [kept] doing wrong after [she'd] repented" (329). This neatly encapsulates a large portion of St. Clare's views on both slavery, religion and, in a manner, living; he recognizes the human need for comfort, even though the acquisition of that comfort may be detrimental to others. Though Marie detests it when he doesn't go to church, he feels better staying at home and enjoying his worldly pleasures, though it makes her upset. Similarly, he keeps "servants" not because he believes what he is doing is right, but because they remind him of the comforts of home and family. St. Clare does not use his slaves in the same way that others in this novel do; his slaves keep a messy kitchen, drive the carriage drunk, and do somersaults for unimpressed guests. However, this is beside the point for him. He is often depicted as looking on at their shenanigans and shortcomings with a sly grin, as if he is a biographer taking notes, or an eager child waiting to sit at the grownups table. His lack of structured religion, his downright disavowal of it, has sharpened his intuitive notion of pleasure. One might say that his voyeuristic tendencies with his slaves seems circusmaster-like, but I believe that he takes joy from them, especially when they are joyful. Of course, it is misguided, as he is unable to separate the joy one should take from a favourite scotch, and the joy one should take from another human being.

essay

Hope Leslie was a dream for me: hunky, taciturn men, moonlit paddles and capes! However, I was struck by how little Magawisca's amputation was mentioned; we rarely see it limiting her movement, and it is never mentioned as a hindrance to her beauty. I then began to think about Edgar Huntly, and how, though sleepwalking could be argued to be a disability, it was the force behind the dramatic tension and forward movement of the novel. I then wondered if their physical disabilities weren't the point; if they were merely symbol to guide the reader towards discovering their emotional disabilities, those inherently related to class structure and inner turmoil.

I hope to examine how these two characters view themselves, in relation to how others view them, and what is expected of them. As Magawisca and Edgar are from different classes (and different races, mind you), I hope to come to some interesting conclusions about how disability is treated in the Native race and in the Caucasian race, respectively.

It's still a rough sketch at the moment, but, in my rereading, I hope to relate the aforementioned topics to other thematic elements in the novels, primarily violence and the wilderness.

himself vs himself

This is a difficult question; to determine whether William Wilson is, in fact, normal, we consider a few stipulations. Firstly, "normal" is a fairly relative term. What is normal in this story? Very little, at least not through the lens of our speaker. Even the house he went to school in seems warped; though he describes it as a "spirit-soothing" places, he doesn't fail to note the "gigantic and gnarled trees." Therefore, we must apply the same subjective terms to the way our speaker describes himself.
William Wilson certainly doesn't think he is normal; from the start, he describes himself as being a "cause of serious disquietude to his friends," and that it was perhaps that he was "left to the guidance of his own will" that he was such trouble to himself and to others. However, though he is very quick to notice his own introspective faults, he remains (perhaps willfully) in the dark about his other, William Wilson part II. If we return to the primary question, as to whether William Wilson part I is "normal," I would say that, to some extent, he is. What he is essentially doing is focusing on his internal faults, as opposed to his external faults, the latter represented by William Wilson part II. While he finds it easy to criticize himself for being "weak-minded," he cannot conceptualize that he may have external faults as well. Thus, his creation of William Wilson part II; he detests William Wilson part II for being "rebellious," for continuing to pursue his shared interests, hobbies, etc, something that he fears will sully their shared name.
This projection of himself is essentially a projection of his "bad side;" while anxiety about selfhood is presumed to be "normal," anxieties about the ego, about inheritence and about name are viewed in the public eye to be ugly. When Wilson I kills Wilson II, and Wilson II utters those searing words ("how utterly thou hast murdered thyself"), he is not merely stating the obvious; in his quest to rid himself of his "evil" and "hated" outside (ego, appearance, etc), he had shed himself of his inside. So no, I don't think Wilson is insane, or crazy. Just a lil' insecure, that's all.

this little light of mine

Hope Leslie is, in many ways, a response to Last of the Mohicans, and Sedgwick best demonstrates this through her portrayal of the two main characters, Hope and Magawisca. The physical similarities to Clara and Alice are striking; both novels feature a dark-skinned rebel "sister" whose delibarately adventurous actions (severing a limb to save a beloved, risking one's own life for the life of a sister) seem to coincide with the colour of their skin. They also feature the "good" sister, whose pure goodness and religious piety seem to correspond with their "fairness." This conceit is carried through consistently to the end; Alice gets her man, and her life, while Cora is denied freedom, love and her life, due to her risky manoeuver to save those that she loves.
The inherent issues between portraying someone who has darker skin as "dangerous" or "rebellious" are brought to the surface in Last of the Mohicans, but are not challenged as they are in Hope Leslie. Sedgwick attempts to subvert Cooper's portrayal of the sisters , and instead asks the reader to question what they believe to be "good" and "bad." Though Hope is portrayed as the "good one" at the beginning of the novel, it is rare that she actually does anything truly noble, especially for those other than herself. For example, Hope only allows her sister to continue wearing the traditional Indian shell necklace when she sees that there is a small cross necklace underneath. This is a telling scene, and one that calls into question my previous word choice of "good." We should perhaps be labelling Hope as pious, and Magawisca as good. It is Magawisca who severs her arm, it is Magawisca who puts herself in great peril to reunite Hope and Faith. We can also see the satire in Sedgwick's writing; whereas Hope and Faith are, quite literally, named and therefore obliged to serve their God, it is Magawisca who is offering up a near biblical sacrifice ––– her own flesh ––– therefore, the more "holy," at least in biblical terms. The imprisonment of Magawisca also draws a comparaison between herself and Cora; both characters are offered a chance to escape (through marriage and through willful endangerment of another's life). Though they both refuse, Cora's refusal seems to come more from repulsion, whereas Magawisca refuses because she does not want to have a "black heart" like those of her captors. Here, we are again demonstrated Magawisca's connection to the spirit and to the heart, the foundations of the Christian faith.
Therefore, one could say that both Cooper and Sedgwick are grappling with the same thesis; the tension between spirituality and Christianity. However, whereas Cooper details it stoically and by using the archetypes of light/dark, Sedgwick asks the reader to question where true spirituality comes from, that it is not from a name or from a country.

t-t-twain

While Twain's battlecry against "literary offence" is both hilariously undersupported and plain old hilariously hilarious, I do agree with some of his claims against Cooper (and against literature as an art). That which struck me the most is when Twain said that " the personages in a tale shall be alive, except in the case of corpses, and that always the reader shall be able to tell the corpses from the others." If we are applying this quote to The Last of the Mohicans, it assumes another complexity, as most characters die in the end. What Twain seems to be implying is that each character must not just be a character, but a living, fully realized person. If a character is only in the novel to die, to teach a lesson to another or to act as a plot-device, that character should not exist at all. Alice, in the context of the plot, exists to die. Her relationship with Heyward affects no other characters, and her only main purpose in the novel is to act as a sort of "bait" for the pursuit. (Though she could be removed and the pursuit would still continue; that Cora is the General's daughter is enough to instigate the action). Even David, as simple and extraneous as he is, is an active participant in the plot, and causes other characters to react and change. (It is his singing that enthralls his captors and seems to stave off his demise).
One of Twain's more contrary statements is that "the characters in a tale shall be so clearly defined that the reader can tell beforehand what each will do in a given emergency." This seems too obvious to even discuss. What would be the point of reading at all! Yes, the characters should be well defined, and yes, the reader should believe that what a character does in an emergency bodes well with how that character has been presented, but if an author were to write a novel in which the reader can not only guess what the emergency will be, but what the character will do, he might as well call the art of story dead right then and there.