Bartleby, the Scrivener Summary: Two Ideologies

This story is approximately three character types based on the Freudian philosophy of the Super Ego, the Id, and the Ego (Kendra Sherry 1, 2016). According to Freud, the Super Ego represents God, the Ego represents the basic instinct of Mankind, and the Id may be the compromise. They are represented in the employer and the higher good, the isolated employee, and all of those other employees. But upon the overview of Herman Melville, the writer, it really is more of an overall feeling of despair and hopelessness as a result of their own life experiences. Following is really a bitter end: withdrawal from society and death in isolation.

The narrator described the employer, the lawyer, as a shrewd businessman who lacked an appreciation for details. He found himself opening a business on Wall Street in legal paperwork, bonds, mortgages, and title deeds. Because the years passed, his business grew, and he had hired two employees and an errand boy who didn’t get along but were well capable within their particular professions. The business expanded again, and the lawyer found himself needing yet another copyist. That he learned of Bartleby, who was simply an excellent copyist who had been fired from Washington D. C. ’s Dead Letter Office.

Bartleby was hired and shaded from one other employees in the lawyer’s office. An essential detail is that his desk was facing the wall alongside a window, his back once again to the employer. For the very first two days, he performed excellent copy work and met his deadlines in a timely and efficient manner. Following the third day, Bartleby began politely refusing to perform specific tasks at work. The lawyer, not knowing what else to complete, kept him on the job. What work that he did do was good, but as time wore on, Bartleby expressed increasing disinterest in doing any work at all. Finally, in response to his employees’ complaints, the lawyer gave him a week’s wages and gave him six days to vacate the office.

Bartleby refused to vacate any office and continued his polite refusals to accomplish specific work items. The lawyer discovered that he was a homeless vagrant, but conferring with the Bible and his compassion; that he still kept Bartleby on until that he was arrested for loitering. He was sent to jail separated from the rest of the criminals having some freedom but preferred to stare at the wall. After a few visits, that he was found dead balled up close to the wall, his right back toward society, staring at the wall.

This is actually the rest of the story Bartleby represents the end product of a guy who had been rejected by society from the beginning. The impression is that he have been born in poverty and was not treated well growing up. That he finally found his gift as a copyist, and provided exceptional work until he realized that it had been all for nothing and vanity; having no promotion or raise, and hardly having an existence at all. While at his previous employment, he begun to passively verbalize and reject doing the work that he was necessary to do (Kendra Sherry 3, 2015). That he was sooner or later fired. The lawyer is representative at one point of the Id, or the compromise between the Superego, the character of God; and the Ego, the base instinctual character of Man. So that they can reach out to Bartleby, it was too late. Society (Ego), had determined he was hopeless. Another area of the ego, the self, Bartleby agreed (also Id), and gave into the apparent appeals of society, even to the stage that not God could reach him (Superego of the lawyer). He died in self-imposed isolation just as he had been forced to see life: his back turned against society staring at a wall (Kendra Sherry 2, 2016).

Works Cited

Kendra Sherry - Sept five, 2016. “What are the Id, the Ego, and the Superego? ” https://www.verywell.com/the-id-ego-and-superego-2795951

Kendra Sherry 2. July 9, 2015. “What is Passive Aggressive Behavior? ” https://www.verywell.com/what-is-passive-aggressive-behavior-2795481

Kendra Sherry 3. June 23, 2016. “Intimacy vs . Isolation – Stages of Psychosocial Development” https://www.verywell.com/intimacy-versus-isolation-2795739