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DanielChungSecondPaper 6 - 05 May 2012 - Main.DanielChung
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| | | Although Melville recognizes that actions can express love, he avoids the temptation to conflate doing good for others with loving others. In fact, Melville reveals that good actions cannot replace love but can often lead to complacency. For example, the narrator in “Bartleby” eventually transitions from tolerating and using Bartleby to pitying and helping Bartleby. The desire for catharsis mutates into a desire for charity. Inspired by a “fraternal melancholy” and convinced that Bartleby is “the victim of innate and incurable disorder,” the narrator resolves to “give alms to [Bartleby’s] body.” Although the narrator claims that the divine injunction to love others motivates his charity and philanthropy, his actions belie his words. Charity and philanthropy are merely cheap substitutes for genuine love. For the narrator, Bartleby is ultimately a burden—something to quit rather than someone to love. Even the seemingly selfless action of inviting Bartleby to his own home is merely a stopgap to preserve his reputation. Having fulfilled his soi-disant duty, the narrator slides into complacency: “I now strove to be entirely care-free and quiescent; and my conscience justified me in the attempt.” And with a few silver coins, the narrator transfers custody of Bartleby into the hands of the grub-man. As aspiring lawyers, we should not grow complacent simply because we do good in the world or do extensive pro bono work. Loving our work is important, but as Melville reveals, loving people is even more important. We should avoid the temptation to substitute acts of kindness and justice for genuine and loving relationships. Doing good and loving others are not mutually exclusive, but they do not always come together.
Being
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> | Togetherness—being together—is at the core of Melville’s conception of love in “Bartleby.” To be with is to love. Melville reveals that physical presence is an important aspect of togetherness. Like a ghost, Bartleby haunts the narrator’s office and is always there “first in the morning, continually through the day, and the last at night.” While everyone else around him works incessantly, Bartleby prefers not to work and simply exists and is present. Although the narrator believes that Bartleby suffers from “miserable friendlessness and loneliness,” Melville reveals that the narrator’s solitude is just as extensive, if not worse. Physical proximity to people is not enough: even though the narrator surrounds himself with eccentric workers, he never touches their lives directly and suffers from relational bankruptcy. Whereas the narrator is constantly occupied by work, Bartleby constantly occupies the narrator’s life—constantly waiting for the narrator to stop and to be with Bartleby. As the narrator admits, “Since [Bartleby] will not quit me, I must quit him.” Only after successfully quitting himself of Bartleby does the narrator yearn to be with Bartleby. And only after touching Bartleby’s dead body does the narrator belatedly experience the intimations of love. Love, as Melville presents it, is a relational and connected state of existence. We exist together in unity with those we love. Melville challenges us to be there for our clients—physically listening to them and touching their lives concretely. Our words as well as our presence—our very being—enable us to effect change in the world. |
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