Bartleby, The Scrivener

Daniely Modesto
English 48A
Journal for Herman Melville
September 28, 2009

I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach”

"Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend Bartleby; to humor him in his strange wilfulness, will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience." The narrator’s unwillingness to exercise charity and authority has finally caught up with him, and his abandoning Bartleby to a new tenant is an act of pure cowardice.
Melville story bites.com

In “Bartleby, The Scrivener,” Herman Melville writes about Bartleby, an old scrivener who the Lawyer hires for his office. The lawyer seems to be a good boss, very attentive and kind to all his employees. The lawyer describes his office and everybody how works there however, Bartleby gets later all the reader’s attention. Bartleby at first seems to be a great employee, but later he becomes an individual who refuses to be part of the society. He starts rejecting work and any other request from his boss. The lawyer always tries to help and understand what is wrong with him, but he always “prefers not to say anything”.

Bartleby in the story, starts being described as an unbalanced and aliened person, however, nobody is sure what is wrong with him. Bartleby's isolation is dangerous and it leads him to depression and his death. Bartleby is just not happy with what is going on with his life and the whole society, he does not want to be just another “copy machine” in that office. He wants to make a difference in the world, but nobody seems to understand him.
The boss in the story says "I placed his desk close up to a small side window in that part of the room, a window which originally had afforded a lateral view of certain grimy backyards, and bricks, but which, owning to insubsequent erections, commanded at present, no view at all, though it gave some light”. Again, Bartleby is been trapped behind another wall, reinforcing his isolation and depression. What is ironic in the story is that the boss later becomes affected for Bartleby and tries to help him. "There was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner, touched and disconnected me" claims the lawyer, trying to understand Bartleby issue with the work and life. The boss offers Bartleby to come and live in his house for a while, but as expected, he denies, as if he was giving up the world. The narrator is a kind man who treats Bartleby with sympathy and understanding, even though he does not know what is wrong with him.
In my opinion, the narrator is representing the society, which keeps telling us what to do, without giving us any choice to speak to ourselves. The boss offers him another kind of job, but he never gave him a chance to say what he really wants to do. Bartleby’s end is sad, and I believe still happens in our society when people just give up their dreams instead of “prefer not to” and speak up.

Second Inaugural Address, March 4,1865

Daniely Modesto
English 48A
Journal for Abraham Lincoln
September 25, 2009

“Both parties deprecated war; but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive; and the other would accept war rather than let it perish. And the war came.”

“Lincoln, one week before his death, had a dream of someone crying in the White House, when he found the room; he looked in and asked who had passed away. The man in the room said the President. When he looked in the coffin, he saw his own face.” A. Lincoln Library.

Lincoln explains that both- North and South- did not want the war but they could not just say no. His words were quite disappointed and weary, while he tried to reconciliate his people. Lincoln used of religious images, and his belief in God in order to compose people as common citizens of one nation only. He places guilty, but both sides are blameworthy. Lincoln’s speech was political and spiritual altogether. Using his Biblical quote he states: “Both read the same Bible, and pray to the same God;” Lincoln’s speech was a plea to the people to forget the past and start a new nation.

Abraham Lincoln determination was a great influence in the world then and today. He achieved one of the most memorable and influential goal in the American History. If he had not fought for his ideals, there would be a chance that slavery would still exist. His speech was not very long, but very touchable and persuasive.

Uncle Tom's Cabin

Daniely Modesto
English 48A
Journal for Harriet Beecher Stowe
September 25, 2009



"The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake;--stumbling--leaping--slipping--springing upwards again!"

“After Mrs. Stowe became acclaimed, at one point she asserted she did not write Uncle Tom's Cabin; God wrote it, and she served merely as His instrument.” Harriet Beecher Stowe: “A Little Bit of a Woman” By Barbara Smith.

Stowe in “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” creates memorable characters that represented the inhumanity of slavery and the depressing action that was taking on the whole nation. Eliza, one of the main characters in the novel, is described, as a strong woman, who runs away with her son in order to avoid their separation. Going through dangerous situations, and risking her life to escape from the south, Stowe made many unaware people understand how those people live and how maltreated they were by their slaveholders.

The book opened up the realities of slavery to the entire world. The novel was a great influence at the time because it was able to show the country, vivid images of slaves’ life in the South. Stowe showed that even “good” slaves owner, when desperate for money, can separate, and sell them. Stowe brought the moral conflict to the public, causing many people to start rethinking their moral judgments about the issue. What was before indifferent, became often more critical and closer to an end.