Topic > Bartleby, The Writer: Alienation and Loss of Individuality

Living in the 21st century, with unprecedented material abundance, we postmoderns, on the one hand, feel fortunate to be blessed with the glories of this productive industrial age ; on the other hand, however, we often find ourselves faced with the problem of relocating ourselves in this kaleidoscopic society and elevating ourselves towards the full development of our personality, which, unfortunately, is frustrated halfway through the pursuit of this ambitious goal. With monitoring devices almost everywhere watching us 24/7, we felt helpless other than having to follow the technological burden. Therefore, modern society has let human existence become alienated and lose individuality. And this is reflected throughout the story. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Since the Industrial Revolution, manual labor has been replaced by machines. Efficiency and productivity emerge as the most important aspect of modern society. And the office of the lawyer can therefore be considered as a tool for exercising power in the most effective way. In which the elderly lawyer is in the central tower with his eyes wide open on the individual cubicles where the four employees, namely Turkey, Nippers, Ginger Nuts and Bartleby, work. Just as the elderly lawyer describes in Bartleby that “the folding doors of frosted glass divided my place into two parts, one of which was occupied by my scribes, the other by me. According to my humor, I have opened these doors wide, or I have closed them." Obviously the senior lawyer is located in a central place, even if it is not a tower, but it has the same central command function, since the senior lawyer has the right to throw open the doors whenever he wants to examine the employees who work for him while the employees can never walk out the door at will and all they can do is keep in mind that they are under surveillance and must do their best to maintain their position. As for Bartleby, the lawyer makes a wiser disposition. “As a further satisfactory solution, I procured a tall green folding screen, which would completely isolate Bartleby from my sight, without, however, keeping him from my voice. And so, in a certain sense, privacy and society were joined." It conceives of a vocal rather than visual game, making voice a superior option to visibility. He can make himself heard at any time by one of the employees and this works perfectly with Bartleby when he first arrives. The functioning of modern society: in Bartleby's case the House prides itself on its high efficiency. “At first Bartley wrote an extraordinary amount of stuff. As if he had long been hungry for something to copy, he seemed to be gorging himself on my documents. There was no break for digestion. He held a day and night line, copying in sunlight and candlelight. I should have been very happy with his application, had he been cheerfully industrious. But he continued to write silently, palely, mechanically. Of the four clerks of the House, Bartleby represents the powerful effect of modern society: efficiency. Yet Bartley is not the only one to be disciplined this way. The four employees together make a collective effect, while on the other hand they are perfectly separated, each is supervised by the guardian – the senior lawyer and each is disciplined effectively, just like the most representative one – Turkey always answers to the lawyer, “ Submissively, sir. Submission is the goal of the functioning of the chamber behind which efficiency is the vital benefit that discipline strives to achieve in oursociety. In the story Bartleby, observation plays a crucial role in the discipline of the employees by the boss, the elderly lawyer, who has the privilege of monitoring their moves in detail, and this is also why this novel is written from a perspective in the first person, because only in this way can this novel achieve descriptive authenticity through the gaze of an omnipresent lawyer. Therefore, it is no wonder that we are shocked to know every detail of every strange behavior of the four employees, just as if someone used a microscope to observe a small thing. The portrait of each employee hangs before our eyes and we can even see their wrinkles on their foreheads. Just as the three clerks are nicknamed Turkey, Nippers, and Ginger Nut, which are "bestowed upon each other by my three clerks, and have been deemed expressive of their respective persons or characters." The senior lawyer details a submissive Türkiye on a day's work as if it were right there under their noses. “In the morning, one might say, her face had a beautiful, florid color, but after midnight, at noon – dinner time – it burned like a grill full of Christmas coals; and continuous fire – but, so to speak, with gradual attenuation – until six in the afternoon, or thereabouts; after which I no longer saw the owner of the face, who, reaching his meridian with the sun, seemed to set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the next day, with the same regularity and unchanged glory. The elderly lawyer's observation of Türkiye is not just about the apparent expressions on his face, but about subtle changes in him that are tainted by a psychological transformation. We are amazed to note that the elderly lawyer seems to be invisible in the courtroom while he manages to perceive what is happening in every corner just like an omnipresent god. As for the next one on the list, Nippers, the lawyer's observation cuts right to the heart of the matter. of his soul. Despite the description of him as a moustachioed, sallow and rather pirate-looking man, in his mid-twenties, the lawyer draws the brief conclusion that he is the victim of two evil powers: ambition and indigestion. “The ambition manifested itself in a certain intolerance towards the tasks of a mere copyist, in an unjustifiable usurpation of strictly professional affairs, such as the original drafting of legal documents. Indigestion seemed to be signaled by occasional nervous irritability and sneering irritability, causing audible gnashing of teeth at mistakes made in copying; useless curses, hissed more than said in the heat of business; and above all by a continuous discontent with the height of the table on which he worked. From the beginning we see that the elderly lawyer is gifted with intuitions with which he manages to penetrate the deepest depths of people. However, we have every reason to deduce that this ability to describe the very character of people develops through close and constant observation at a reachable distance and, above all, without conscious knowledge of the object. Bartleby from the beginning does not show even the slightest submission to the disciplinary society, mostly unaware of how his boss feels when he responds in his usual way: "I'd rather not." It seems that Bartleby is not “human” in this society and the age-old rules and regulations simply don't bother him. He lives a life according to his own principles which are at odds with this industrial world. In Bartleby, the Scrivener, the lawroom is a surveillance and the elderly lawyer is in the center, observing the prisoners in the surrounding cells, in which Turkey, Nippers, Ginger Nut and.