Angloamerican

COMMUNICATION

Stillness =

lack of movement

Lack of food

Dead letter office = Dead letter Office = lack of Books = lack of communication

No communication communication in the family with his readers

Affectionate relationship between the writer and the readers; on the one hand we have a

story, which talks about a lawyers and on the other hand we have the history of a family (Melville’s

one). Multiple relationships melted up in the story: lawyer, father (biographic relationship) and

writer’s job (public relationship).

“I prefer not to,” he replied in a flute-like tone.

The voice of Bartleby sounds like a flute (reference to music): musical voice, not harmony

⟷

Language music: it has no words, but words have meaning, it’s a pure signifier. Bartleby is

trying to get away from meaning, he prefers not to communicate, escaping in a space devoid from

meaning = denial of meaning. Bartleby is a total rebel.

Yes: his decision was irreversible. It is not seldom the case that when a man is

browbeaten in some unprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins to

stagger in his own plainest faith. He begins, as it were, vaguely to surmise that,

wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the other side.

Accordingly, if any disinterested persons are present, he turns to them for some

reinforcement for his own faltering mind. ⟷

Bartleby’s disobedience is irreversible, he decided not to obey to the lawyer as Melville did

in the face of/towards his father (he didn’t become what his father wanted: he decided to be a

writer). With his disobedience, Bartleby denies and lowers that sense of identity which

typifies the lawyer: the narrator creates his personality, his faith in himself through his public

state. The reaction is creating a sense of weakness so the lawyer has to ask someday else to

reinforce his mind as he’s going to doubt of himself.

30 Scorned all further words: astenersi dal commentare

31 Wonderful manner: per qualche strano motivo 26

Chiara Zecchini

Poor fellow! thought I, he means no mischief; it is plain he intends no insolence; his

aspect sufficiently evinces that his eccentricities are involuntary. He is useful to me. I

can get along with him. If I turn him away, the chances are he will fall in with some

less indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth

miserably to starve. Yes. Here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval.

A sense of resentment and also a father’s affection towards Bartleby, not the usual anger he feels

towards him.

For it was exceeding difficult to bear in mind all the time those strange peculiarities,

privileges, and unheard of exemptions, forming the tacit stipulations on Bartleby’s

part under which he remained in my office.

The roles between Bartleby and the lawyer are reversed: it’s the scrivener who stipulates a

contract with the narrator and decides whether stay in the office or going away, it’s he who dictates

the rules.

“Why, how now? what next?” exclaimed I, “do no more writing?”

“No more.”

“And what is the reason?” “Do you not see the reason for yourself,” he indifferently

replied.

I looked steadfastly at him, and perceived that his eyes looked dull and glazed. Instantly

it occurred to me, that his unexampled diligence in copying by his dim window for the

first few weeks of his stay with me might have temporarily impaired his vision.

I said something in condolence with him. I hinted that of course he did wisely in

abstaining from writing for a while; and urged him to embrace that opportunity of taking

wholesome exercise in the open air. This, however, he did not do.

Bartleby became blind as he had to copy something useless, without using his own creativity. The

narrator feels guilty and compassive because Bartleby is creative no more.

At last I was made aware that all through the circle of my professional acquaintance, a

whisper of wonder was running around, having reference to the strange creature I kept at

my office. This worried me very much

When the narrator sees B, he sees himself.

Bartleby would surely be less inflexible than usual, and carry these letters to the post-

office. But he blankly declined. So, much to my inconvenience, I went myself.

Letters: letter intend as an alphabetic sign is an Egyptian word.

Well then, would you like to travel through the country collecting bills for

the merchants? That would improve your health.” “No, I would prefer to be doing

something else.” “How then would going as a companion to Europe, to entertain some

young gentleman with your conversation, — how would that suit you?” “Not at all. It

does not strike me that there is anything definite about that. I

like to be stationary. But I am not particular.”

Stationary= paper where letters are written on. B is transforming himself in a letter, in paper, in an

object; related to the writer’s job, what B wants to become.

[…] the writer had sent to the police, and had Bartleby removed to the Tombs as a

vagrant. Moreover, since I knew more about him than anyone else, he wished me to 27

Chiara Zecchini

appear at that place, and make a suitable statement of the facts. These tidings had a

conflicting effect upon me. At first I was indignant; but at last almost approved. The

landlord’s energetic, summary disposition had led him to adopt a procedure which I do

not think I would have decided upon myself; and yet as a last resort, under such peculiar

circumstances, it seemed the only plan.

At the end of story, Bartleby is taken to prison (the Tombs) because he refuses to do his job and,

there, let himself dying.

“What!” exclaimed I; “suppose your eyes should get entirely well— better than ever

before—would you not copy then?”

“I have given up copying” he answered, and slid aside.

[…] Strangely huddled at the base of the wall, his knees drawn up, and lying on his side,

But nothing stirred. I

his head touching the cold stones, I saw the wasted Bartleby.

paused; then went close up to him; stooped over, and saw that his dim eyes were open;

otherwise he seemed profoundly sleeping. I felt his hand, when a tingling shiver ran

up my arm and down my spine to my feet.

Bartleby is transforming himself in an object, in particular in a letter. He’s becoming an alphabet

himself, a hieroglyph. The narrator cannot understand that Bartleby is going to die, as doesn’t

have any sensibility. At the end, the lawyer becomes aware that the scrivener is died.

Gothic novel = 1765 “The Castle of Otranto”

• Concerning with bad things that happened to aristocracy

• ➝

Fear, unbalanced related to religion, to God

• Many of the Gothic novels took place in Italy due to a movement against Catholic religion

and Pope) in England people are Protestants, Anglicans) = the Catholic church is related to

corruption, decay, death (skulls, ghosts).

References to supernatural manifestations or places but no explications

Ann Radcliffe wrote “The Mysteries of Udolpho” which includes the themes of The Gran Tour

(the first form of tourism) for the first time: wealthy-young English people, with classical education,

visit Europe – France and Italy – to improve their knowledge about Latin and Greek cultures and to

see what they had studied. The novel depicts the sublime landscapes of Alps: that way, it

reproduces the picturesque, which is still beautiful (not scary) and gives a sense of AWE, a kind of

panic produced by the supernatural – glimpse of the divine – sublime – fear. The protagonist has

➝

been usurped: another aristocrat comes and gets all the fortune of the first one Human being is

transformed into fragments: the fragmented body of the man is a new type of sublime (as in

Frankenstein).

BEAUTIFUL ≠ SUBLIME: something beautiful but terrifying – from Latin: sub limen, under the

limits, something that cannot be understand by human mind, fragments (such as the monster of

Frankenstein).

“An artist moved to despair”

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4e/FuseliArtistMovedtoDespair.jpg:

➝

A romantic poet’s crying because classical beauty has gone he creates the sublime. Classical

beauty is moving into pieces and human beings see its fragmentation

The idea of grotesque (http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-

IlgJhO4ZCI4/UQWRbHPeN_I/AAAAAAAACS0/cMEfwAgxUtc/s640/grottesca-camerino-bianca-

cappello_Palazzo-Vecchio.jpg). Strange faces, medieval monsters, representation of death

(devils, demons); the idea of metamorphosis, everything can look something else: nature reveals

➝

that things have different shapes, nothing is as it seems irrational 28

Chiara Zecchini

WESTER

st

The 1 American dictionary, it is the basis for creating what will become SAE Standard American

English. They use Americanisms. National language.

<-> AAVE African American Vernacular English, slave told tales by heart because they weren’t

allowed to write. They learnt how to say something but not how to spell it.

SPANGLISH: combination of Spanish and English.

Arizona Book Ban (Mexican authors) they were taken away from schools:

http://www.iperstoria.it/joomla/numeri/10-indice-numero-i-novembre-2012

English only movement: it became a way to control how people express themselves. Monolinguist

bad because people think that if other people are worse if they don’t talk their language.

Purifying the language is hiding behind an idea of good and bad citizens.

Proxemics: everything related to non-verbal communication (gestures, facial expressions, etc). It

defines the way space relays communication. Social space = tv // public space =between me and

other people // personal space // intimate space = physical contact.

The Sixties and the African-American Literature

In United States, we assist to some protests against the University, Black community, the Vietnam

War against which music itself support the fight. The social change which exploded during this

period concerns some important figures: Martin Luther King, who fought for Black people’s rights,

Malcom X (he called himself with the X as Black people weren’t considered human beings)

who saw Black people as a community to itself and the Black Panthers.

➝ ➝

Negro: derogatory by black people themselves NIGGER NIGGA, NIGGERS NIGGAZ.

Negro has different meanings = black, Afro-American (refused as it has the root “Africa) and

American African.

Martin Luther King had a follow up among Black people of the south. He gave a speech during

President Lincoln’s Memorial: I have a dream. His dream was about integration of black people

in American society, to have the possibility to go to school, to study, to work, to vote, so to be

considered the same way as white people. The only people allowed to read were the one who

work