Blog #1 "Bartleby The Scrivener" on the view of Spiritual Ecology

Reading <Bartleby The Scrivener> written by Herman Melville, I was astonished and moved. This is a novel with profound connotation. The story took place in the Wall Street, the biggest financial and social center in the middle of nineteenth century, where the skyscrapers rise up from the land. Working as a scrivener for a professional lawyer in the Wall Street, Bartleby works very hard, even harder than anyone in this company. However, in the face of his leader and his colleagues’ commands, he only replies with “I would prefer not to”. At last, he wears people out with his behaviors, and he dies in the jail. When reading this story under modern background, people may think Bartleby’s behaviors are absurd. In contrast, I take Bartleby’s behaviors as reasonable because of the work environment at that time and the influence that it has on people’s mind.

Chinese critic Lu Shuyuan points out the “Spiritual Ecology”, which is a subject studies the connection between human and their living environment. Wall Street is a place of high urbanization; nature has been driven out of people's vision. There is almost no gap row upon row of edifice. In the land on the island of Manhattan, people maximize the use of land and space, making it into a cage, where people imprisoned to do drudgery work for money. The environment of the whole Wall Street was unnatural and anti ecological at that time. The old lawyer makes a description of the environment. His firm is located in an office surrounded by high-rise buildings in Wall Street. From a section of the office to see is a white wall. Working in such an environment, people are in a state of isolation from nature, often feeling depressed, lonely and insignificant. The boring work and harsh environment of the law firm is a symbol of the working environment of Wall Street. This is the satiation of routine workers during rise of capitalism.

When comes to Bartleby himself, according to what the old lawyer said in a postscript, working at the Dead Letter Office, Bartleby could see the human life without hopes and even despair, which makes him severely depressed. When Bartleby appeared in the law firm, he is “Pallidly neat, pitiably respectable incurably forlorn”, which means that he already has serious mental problems. Unfortunately, the environment in Wall Street is as terrible as that in the Dead Letter Office. However, unlike Nipper and Turkey, he can not give vent to himself in some ways as they do. The only way he can do is stubbornly, mechanically working, taking a negative attitude to the world which makes him depressed and hopeless. During the middle of nineteenth century, the United States gained the independence. With rapid development of economic, many people living in the east went to the west to open up a new life. However, Bartleby chooses to work in the Wall Street. He chooses the world made by walls. Therefore, he is imprisoned by himself and completely alienated.

To conclude, although what he says and does is absurd, living in a stressful society and working in a lifeless building dramatically increases the likelihood of a person making desperate behaviors.