Bartleby oh bartleby

"For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stinging melancholy seized me. Before, I had never experienced aught but a not-unpleasing sadness. The bond of a common humanity now drew me irresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy! For both I and Bartleby were sons of Adam."
Text source: http://www.bartleby.com/129/ paragraph 89

In this week, we have read Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street by Herman Melville. Throughout this text, Melville explains his long extablished lawfirm in the 1850's. He describes in great detail his employees and the work they do. After all that, he happens upon a man named Bartleby, whom he employes within his lawfirm as a scrivener. Throughout the text, Melville goes round and round with Bartleby because of one simple phrase, I would prefer not to.
The passage above is a dirrect quote from the text. Melville's expierence with Bartleby is a very excentric one. At first, he is very good at doing his job, copying the last days sessions. however at one point, Bartleby decides to no longer write. He gives no reason for stoping writing, simply that he would prefer not to. After discovering that Bartleby lives within his offices, Melville simply asks the man to leave. Bartleby having not said more than 5 words at a time since he has come to him, simply stays living there, all the while, Melville continues to try to get bartleby out. Finnaly, having enough of this nonscence, Melville moves out of the offices, and takes up residence within another place. Finally the story ends with Bartleby dying in the prison which he was taken to after the new tenants took up residence.
The passage mad me think, much like the rest of the story did, that Melville was a very decent man. To  allow someone to live within your residence with out producing anything of value is a very noble trait. I then realized that Melville is looking at Bartleby as a son of Adam. He is a simple human being with nowhere else to go in the world. Melville attempts to "save" Bartleby's soul since he apears to be a shell of a man to anyone who sees him. In my opinion, Melville is seeing Bartleby as a form of humanity.
He states many times throughout the text that there is not much charity throughout the world. In this instance, he is giving Bartleby a plac to live out of charity. I believe that he is simply trying to save the man, having no realitives or loved ones to speak of.
Unfortunately, at the end, Melville, despite his efforts, could not save humanity, and allows it to die. Despite his niceness towards humanity, and all his efforts, he simply couldnt save this one soul.

Image source: http://www.biography.com/people/herman-melville-9405239

Summary V.S. Analysis

To me the difference between a summary and analysis is clear. If I were to summarize a book, I would simply tell what happened in the book in a small, vague way than in the book. However, if I were to analyze the book, I would state my take of the book. As it's said, an analysis raises an argument about a certain idea of a book, from a certain perspective. Not everyone will agree with it, and that's what makes it an analysis. For example: a short summary of a book I recently read, Cure by Robin Cook would be:
In the book, Cure by Robin Cook, the main character, Ben, the owner of a stem cell research company, kills a man in China looking for research notes of his assistant Satoshi. He then smuggles Satoshi into the US because having him on board will boost his company's value. Satoshi then gets murdered by the Yakuza crime family, and Ben tries to cover his tracts of being assioated with him, as he was in this conuntry illeagally, and his company will fall. Ben at the very end, gets extradited to China and is presumed eventually killed in China for the murder of the man in China.
  This is a clear and concise summary of the book in about 3 sentences. It raises no questions, nor begins any arguments, but simply states facts. Anyone who reads the book couldn’t argue with these facts, and that's what makes it a summary. If I were to do an analysis about the book, any individual would be able to argue with me about my take of the book.
In the book, Cure the author, Robin Cook, clearly wished to express that if you’re a greedy individual, you will get what's coming to you. He illustrates this by painting a greedy CEO killing another human simply for the monetary gain of his company and eventually turning his back on the person that helped his company gain its status.
This analysis could potentially raise an argument from individuals reading it who may not agree with the idea that I have of the story, which makes it an analysis.

If you wish to read more about summary versus analysis, click here.
















Image source: http://celebrity-books.blogspot.com/2010/08/cure-robin-cook.html

A modest proposal

Image source: http://www.luminarium.org/eightlit/swift/

This week we read Johnathan Swift's, A modest proposal. In this text, Jonathan proposes that the "gentlemen" of Ireland circa 1760 eat the fatherless offspring of the whores around belfast. In his essay, he proposes that a mother should nurse her child to a minimum of one year, allowing said child to reach about 20 to 30 pounds. At which time, said mother can sell her child to any gentleman, for up to 7 pounds of Irish coin. This solution for mothers of these bastard children solved many problems of the current time. It saved the mothers from killing thier own children, it saved them from begging for money and clothing and food on the streets. There was also a main focus on a major problem that it would solve, it would end a lot of crime, as most of the crime in belfast was perpetrated by children between the ages of six and fourteen.
I believe that Swift's position on the issue, however outrageous it may seem, is credible. I think that he actually believed that children could be cooked and served for any type of gathering. If you look at the intended audience of the time, he was adressing the upper middle class of Ireland. Durring this time, there wasnt much class structure, you were either middle class, upper class or poor. There was a major crime problem within many of the larger towns creating a major source of stress. There, also, was no form of birth control. For this reason, many of the whores of the town would become begging hags. His simple proposal to consume this form of offspring, which numbered in the hundred's of thousands durring one year, at the time and place, may have seemed logical to the upper and middle classes at the time.
Throughout his proposal, Swift makes valid arguments for the consumption of human meat. I'm still not sure if he is making fun of anything, or if he is onehundred percent seerious about the whole essay. I do know from reading about society in Ireland circa 1760, which you can read here, he is correct about the crime, classes, and social structure, so one could believe this whole senario.