SUMMARY OF

Bartleby the Socratic - Critical Essay

2004

In his article Andre Furlani presents his view and the view of numerous critics on the nature of actions the character of Herman Melville 's story Bartleby ' whose name matches the name of the story . Andre tends to see Bartleby not as an abstract literary hero , but rather as a Socratic force that disturbs the only real character in the story , who in Andre 's view is the attorney himself , by putting his pragmatic beliefs under severe test . Such nature of Bartleby may be explained due

br to the influence Plato 's transcendental ideas had on Melville himself and his appreciation of Socrates . Though the story contains no direct reference to either of these authors

Bartleby uses Socratic method to examine the attorney . This method is called elenchus and is constituted of constant scrutiny and testing that leads its victim to its own acknowledgement of unawareness about anything in this world . Such Bartleby 's actions lead to attorney 's eventual insight of false claim of his beliefs , which according to the critic Kingsley Widmer makes the attorney to attempt to resurrect his false faith . The whole story Bartleby ' is narrated by the attorney who claims to be a man of values , however his values are not moral ones rather they are physical . Attorney 's morals are of Wall Street world the world of money and power . And as William B . Dillingham says they are endangered by Bartleby who threatens to drag from behind the walls and into the open all the worst fears of the narrator (3 . Bartleby uses rather queer methods to test attorney 's beliefs , such as refusing to perform tedious job , or occupying the office and not letting attorney inside , rejection to quit the office . These methods seem to be absurd to such pragmatic man as attorney is , therefore when he is confronted with them he is just lost and doesn 't even know how to react . Nevertheless this makes him turn for the answers to his own beliefs and he sees that the Wall Street faith that he usually relies on doesn 't work in case of Bartleby who seems to live in another world . Therefore , through confusion Bartleby questions attorney 's beliefs . As Richard Robinson states , the elenchus that Bartleby uses , no matter how odd seems to bee never the less is rather successful , because it makes attorney realize at least intuitively , the falsehood of his ground beliefs and values When attorney doesn 't want to acknowledge the deception of his faith surprisingly , he doesn 't fire Bartleby , instead he fights elenchus by postponing reaction to scrivener 's actions or finding some routine explanations to them . When finally he sees his other workers being exposed to Bartleby 's influence and now not approving his own actions attorney resolves to fire his torturer , and after Bartleby refuses to quit he makes him numerous offers that Bartleby also turns down . As Dillingham claims this struggle constitutes the primary substance of the story...