Guy gets hired to do a job of a scrivener, refuses to scrivene. Eventually refuses to do anything at all, eventually dying from his refusal of even eating.
i thought the whole thing was an allegory for man choosing to not accept god and willingly go to hell. the employer is the god figure who offers bartleby another chance at every step, but as bartleby has free will he refuses it at every turn and damns himself
This sounds like the most possible explanation of this story, besides obviously him being chronically depressed. Obviously that doesn't explain his almost autistic obsession with not saying anything but "I would prefer not to", which infuriated me
i thought the whole thing was an allegory for man choosing to not accept god and willingly go to hell. the employer is the god figure who offers bartleby another chance at every step, but as bartleby has free will he refuses it at every turn and damns himself
The reason theological interpretations like this on IQfy bug me is that the implicit premise seems to be: "Well, we all know that there's nothing strange and fascinating going on at the literal level of the story, nothing in our daily lives that could possibly be worth exploring in art. No office could ever be an arena of uncanny crisis unless the boss was really a symbol for God."
How should an artist produce, then, if they do sense the strange, tense, fragile atmosphere of a modern office and want to take it to its logical conclusion? How do they preserve the ambiguity and irreducible specificity of a dreamlike image that haunts them - that of a man, behind the screen, sitting silent - without someone obscuring it with a 6-foot-wide sticker saying 'Universal Man'?
Interesting reading, but I don't really see the narrator as a godly figure. Yes, he does seem to have endless patience and compassion for Bartleby, but in the end he yields to his will, and runs away, leaving him to his fate. And then he even feels guilty about it! He seems to me much more human than Bartleby himself, in fact.
Also, despite the title, I thought the story was about the narrator, who desperately tries to rationalise Bartleby's inexplicable behaviour and makes justifications for it, and bargains with him all the way to his death.
People who see books as an escape hatch from the prison of the present vs. people who see books as funny archaic mirrors dotted around the prison walls.
Waging. He realized the eon-old truth that waging is for homosexuals, and that having a job is fundamentally for losers, as no matter how ideal or cushy it is, it will be filled to the brim with at least 80% loserlike activities, such as interacting with clients, participating in meetings, writing emails, doing marketing, or deferring to the authority of your boss (most loserlike thing imaginable - and self-employed people don't get a pass, their boss is the client, and so they're just loser-prostitutes because they have hundreds of bosses).
That's what Bartleby realized at once he started working as a clerk, and he found death preferable because he was a reasonable man.
I'm pretty sure he was just depressed
I mean I dont like psychiatry at all so I wouldn't saddest using that term at all... but yeah he was melancholic, he felt bad. Maybe saying hes depressed seems to you more profound insightful and specific but I think contrariwise
I prefer not to tell (you)
I got bored of Moby Dick, sell this to me…
Guy gets hired to do a job of a scrivener, refuses to scrivene. Eventually refuses to do anything at all, eventually dying from his refusal of even eating.
This sounds like the most possible explanation of this story, besides obviously him being chronically depressed. Obviously that doesn't explain his almost autistic obsession with not saying anything but "I would prefer not to", which infuriated me
i thought the whole thing was an allegory for man choosing to not accept god and willingly go to hell. the employer is the god figure who offers bartleby another chance at every step, but as bartleby has free will he refuses it at every turn and damns himself
I never thought about it that way but it makes sense to me. I always wondered why Bartleby just insisted on doing less and less.
The reason theological interpretations like this on IQfy bug me is that the implicit premise seems to be: "Well, we all know that there's nothing strange and fascinating going on at the literal level of the story, nothing in our daily lives that could possibly be worth exploring in art. No office could ever be an arena of uncanny crisis unless the boss was really a symbol for God."
How should an artist produce, then, if they do sense the strange, tense, fragile atmosphere of a modern office and want to take it to its logical conclusion? How do they preserve the ambiguity and irreducible specificity of a dreamlike image that haunts them - that of a man, behind the screen, sitting silent - without someone obscuring it with a 6-foot-wide sticker saying 'Universal Man'?
They do it the same way Gogol did it in his Overcoat.
Interesting reading, but I don't really see the narrator as a godly figure. Yes, he does seem to have endless patience and compassion for Bartleby, but in the end he yields to his will, and runs away, leaving him to his fate. And then he even feels guilty about it! He seems to me much more human than Bartleby himself, in fact.
Also, despite the title, I thought the story was about the narrator, who desperately tries to rationalise Bartleby's inexplicable behaviour and makes justifications for it, and bargains with him all the way to his death.
>the employer is the god figure
Are you american?
>Heaven is when you’re a wagecuck
I think he is
Guys is this not oblomov??? What’s going the on???????????
it's actually a third author altogether - garshin - who they just put on the cover of books because he had a cool portrait
He’s just a typical useless zoomer
People who see books as an escape hatch from the prison of the present vs. people who see books as funny archaic mirrors dotted around the prison walls.
Waging. He realized the eon-old truth that waging is for homosexuals, and that having a job is fundamentally for losers, as no matter how ideal or cushy it is, it will be filled to the brim with at least 80% loserlike activities, such as interacting with clients, participating in meetings, writing emails, doing marketing, or deferring to the authority of your boss (most loserlike thing imaginable - and self-employed people don't get a pass, their boss is the client, and so they're just loser-prostitutes because they have hundreds of bosses).
That's what Bartleby realized at once he started working as a clerk, and he found death preferable because he was a reasonable man.
wtf, the guy is on cover is Vsevolod Garshin
I'm pretty sure he was just depressed
I mean I dont like psychiatry at all so I wouldn't saddest using that term at all... but yeah he was melancholic, he felt bad. Maybe saying hes depressed seems to you more profound insightful and specific but I think contrariwise
NPNW