Bartleby Is A Victim Of The Capitalist Way Of Life

In a society where work is portrayed as needed, individuals that prefer not to are seen as rebels and enemies of the capitalist way of life. I think that Bartleby is a victim of this capitalist way of life, him and the Queen are cultural rebels, they represent the absurdity of work and the necessity of identity. First and foremost, Capitalism wants people to work it doesn’t want people to prefer not to work, the working man needs to work in order for the economy to keep on rolling. The rich men of capitalism want the working man to keep on working for their money to come in. Without work capitalism crashes. That is why Bartleby is thrown in prison, this is why he is constantly persecuted and questioned by the narrator, the narrator is confused because he is used to capitalism and it’s way of working, Bartleby is nothing but the odd one out of this system. When Bartleby stops producing copies, his life slowly gets worst, it leads him to go in prison and rot for the rest of his days. Bartleby lives in a society that wants nothing but constant production. He is crushed by the money-making monster that is capitalism. No one wants Bartleby to work in their establishment because he doesn’t want to work. To this society someone who does not want to work is regarded as a lazy pe rson who leeches off of others. The narrator tries to get Bartleby to stay away from him, he doesn’t want anything to do with him near the end, capitalism has consumed the narrator it shows that it hasShow MoreRelated batleby the scrivener Essay1744 Words   |  7 Pages quot;Bartleby the Scrivenerquot; is a complex story, so I am going to zero in on one particularly interesting and intelligent aspect of it. Due to the power of the message even this one particular aspect will be complex, of course. The first thing to note is that the story has a first-person narrator. The narrator, an anonymous lawyer, is in fact a major character in his own right. Ostensibly the story is about Bartleby and his actions as a scrivener. However, what the story is really about,Read More`` Bartleby, The Scrivener, And Harlan Ellison s `` Repent, Harlequin !1256 Words   |  6 Pageseveryone in the society around them acts. Therefore, someone who is not deemed as being â€Å"normal† cannot be seen as having a healthy mind and having a good sense of judgement because they are too perceptive to the world around them. In Herman Melville’s â€Å"Bartleby, the Scrivener† and Harlan Ellison’s â€Å" ‘Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Tickto ckman† the principal characters are ostracized by the society’s they live in for this very reason. Being that both of the characters are mindful enough to rebel against whatRead MoreRelationship Between Society And The Individual2194 Words   |  9 Pagesthe individual and society that is reflected in the written pieces of each time, revealing the connection between oneself and the collective spanning across the centuries. ‘The Scarlet Letter’, written in a Puritan world, and ‘Bartleby, The Scrivener’, written in capitalist America, are two key examples of literature that expose, detail and discuss the relationship between society and the individual in American history. Alexis de Tocqueville (1835), a French political thinker, stated that individualismRead More Suicide in Bartleby and Life in the Iron Mills Essay2656 Words   |  11 PagesSuicide in Bartleby and Life in the Iron Mills Life in the Iron Mills and Bartleby are centered on characters who are alienated laborers, looking for means through which they cannot be deprived of their humanity. Hugh Wolfe and Bartleby are both workers who have been victimized by the capitalistic system. As Karl Marx explains, the capitalistic system exploits the laborer and thus robs the laborer of his humanity through alienating the laborer. Both Wolfe and Bartleby become victims of the