Bartleby.. My Analysis thus far...
By Elizabeth London
Well...My analysis..
I just started it today (hehe), however I have been thinking about what stand I will take considering the thesis that I chose. The thesis I chose wasn't necessarily the stand that I took on the short story - however - I don't know what my stand really is. I was all over the place while reading the story and have yet to compress it all into one stand rather than a jump from place to place.
Anyway, the thesis that I chose was this: Bartleby is the hero of Melville’s story in his refusal to participate in a workplace that represents the sad, dreary atmosphere of a bureaucratic, industrialized society. He is the only one standing up to a society that is increasingly oppressive to workers.
This seemed like an interesting stand, and I wanted to take the challenege of proving the thesis correct, even if that wasn't my stand, because it was a stand in the least. I like the idea of the challenge. It is almost like a debate with myself.
I am thinking about approaching this in a way of showing Bartleby, and then showing reactions to him (whether it be from his coworkers Nippers and Turkey, or from the people in the building, or from his boss - who I like to call Mr. Wall-Street), and then showing how that relates to him being a hero in the dreary workplace - vaguely my idea is that he stops the ho-hum and makes people rethink what they are doing all day. For example, it makes Mr. Wall-Street stop in his tracks and go out and get coffee instead of slumping at his desk and making his assistants do it.
I have written parts of my outline, although, I rarely stick to my outlines so I keep them as flexible as possible. I have a really creative mind and it usually just goes where it wants and I refine later on. That has worked pretty well for me and in this instance I just need to make sure I remember to cite the book and not work just based off my opinions, since it is an analysis I need to work to analyze for it to be credible! :)
Well, that is all I have to say at this point! Let me know if you guys have any suggestions/comments/whatever else about the direction my essay seems to be going!
Thanks
Toodle-oo!
Elizabeth
Hey there Elizabeth! I too felt the same way you did about picking a thesis, it was hard to write about something I didn't necessarily come up with and I felt confined in my writing, having to stick to this thesis I didn't really agree with. I picked the same thesis you did though and really am kinda going in the same direction....I did do sort of a twist at the end though and brought it back to today's time. ...this was my way of putting my own voice to it because like I said I felt confined when writing. I don't know if maybe that helps...knowing that I tried to put my own feel to it rather than regurgitate what I thought the teacher wanted. I reality that's what my first rough draft was and I thought to myself this doesn't sound like me at all!!! ...So I say just be true to you, but it sounds like your off to a great start!!
ReplyDeleteThank you Danielle! That does help! I often lose myself in writing when, like you said, it is not something I particularly like.. so thank you for reminding me of that! I will definitely keep that in mind :)
ReplyDeleteElizabeth,
ReplyDeleteI like your coffee idea, anything I can relate back to this day and age is a nice change of place from Mr. 1853. My brain hurts from this text. I am struggling to I feel as if I'm in a place with my paper where I am manipulating the text into what I want it to be rather than what it is. Having started out with a thesis not my own I think is like Danielle stated a challenge.
I know!!! When I saw the teacher gave us thesis statements I was like "oh great this will be easy, she did half the work for us". ......then after starting to write I felt soooo lost!!! ....glad it's over now...well until the next one HAHA!
DeleteI am with you that I had to mess around with how I initially felt about the story to really get a good fit for the essay. I also understand where you are coming from with following your outline, I never stick to that thing. It is kind of neat to look at it afterwards to see just how far you have gone away from your original idea. I am constantly rummaging through my drafts and switching paragraphs and sentences around to see where they fit.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the outline too, always changing what I want to say as I type my papers out. I'm glad we had to choose a thesis already prepared for this book because it is a hard book for me to understand. Hopefully as I am agruing my thesis it will get easier. Good luck to you, I know I need it!
ReplyDeleteI also chose to do the same thesis not only because it seemed the easiest but also because I thought it had more evidence to support it. Bartleby is in a way a hero by not doing what others tell him to do, but instead refuses and even goes to prison as a result of his actions.
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