EN 127 Test #1

Emerson says we are using only our Understanding and not our Readon:

"At present, man applies to nature but half his force. He works on the world with his understanding alone.... Meantime, in the thick darkness, there are not wanting gleams of a better light—occasional examples of the action of man upon nature with his entire force—with reason as well as understanding. Such examples include...the abolition of the Slave-trade" -Refers to the Slave Trade Act of 1800: made it illegal to import slaves to the US or invest in the international slave trade"

Is this a job that would nurture poets or artists? No.

"I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet, Byron, would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law document of, say five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand" -mettlesome = full of spirit or courage -"crimpy" = compressed, pinched and hard to read

Thoreau affirms the importance of public action and nonconformity

"Let every man make known..." -he hints at nonconformity when he puns on the word "conventions" -"Are there not many individuals...who do not attend conventions?"

Emerson encourages dialogue. He begins by underscoring the advantages of emancipation, which is the "safer" and "cheaper" policy, so that they are clear to opponents of slavery:

"The institution of slavery seems to its opponent to have but one side, and he feels that none but a stupid or a malignant person can hesitate on a view of the facts. Under such an impulse, I was about to say, If any cannot speak, or cannot hear the words of freedom, let him go hence [....] But I have thought better. [...] I must not hesitate to satisfy that man [in favor of slavery], [...] I shall not refuse to show him, that [...] the oldest planters of Jamaica are convinced, that it is cheaper to pay wages, than to own slaves."

What is a scrivener?

"The nature of my avocations for the last thirty years has brought me into more than ordinary contact with what would seem an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom as yet nothing that I know of has ever been written:—I mean the lawcopyists or scriveners." a new social type, the result of socioeconomic changes in American society: a man who is basically a Xerox machine -"He wrote on silently, palely, mechanically." -He is copying, not writing creatively (vs. Emerson) He is an owned thing, not a man: -Bartleby is a "valuable acquisition"

New emphasis: Emerson's explicit criticism of capitalism, where "the soul is subject to dollars"

"The state of society is one in which the members have suffered amputation from the trunk, and strut about so many walking monsters - a good finger, a neck, a stomach, an elbow, but never a man. Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things. The planter, who is Man sent out into the field to gather food, is seldom cheered by any idea of the true dignity of his ministry. He sees the bushel and his cart, and nothing beyond, and sinks into the farmer, instead of Man on the farm. The tradesman scarcely ever gives an ideal worth to his work, but is ridden by the routine of his craft, and the soul is subject to dollars. Man is thus metamorphosed into a thing, into many things." -men are being dehumanized by their labor, and have lost sight of the dignity of their ministry -men are isolated; society is divided; men are alienated from their labor - they are "walking monsters" -the loss of individuality is also a loss of humanity: people are turned into things; an implicit criticism of slavery

Thoreau, more than Emerson, affirms the possibility of a "recovered innocence"

"Through our own recovered innocence we discern the innocence of our neighbors. You may have known your neighbor yesterday for a thief, a drunkard, or a sensualist, and merely pitied or despised him, and despaired of the world; but the sun shines bright and warm this first spring morning, re-creating the world, and you meet him at some serene work, and see how his exhausted and debauched veins expand with still joy...and all his faults are forgotten." Thoreau also offers a note of caution: "We loiter in winter while it is already spring" -don't let your despair keep you from seeing hope -perceive the wonder of the present

Emerson's sharp criticisms and warning about American capitalism and the "outrage" of enslaving free Black citizens from New England who were kidnapped on a boat to New Orleans

"We are shopkeepers, and have acquired the vices and virtues that belong to trade...Whilst I have read of England, I have thought of New England" "If such a damnable outrage can be committed on the person of a citizen with impunity, [...] The Governor of Massachusetts is a trifler: the State-house in Boston is a playhouse: the General Court is a dishonored body: if they make laws which they cannot execute." -the consequences for the entire society, and the Governor and legislative body making the laws have no meaning

Cultural nationalism and America's coming-of-age: new emphasis on the purpose of literature in an industrializing society

"thus far, our holiday has been simply a friendly sign of the survival of the love of letters amongst a people too busy to give to letters any more. As such it is a precious sign of an indestructible instinct" "perhaps the time is already come, when...the sluggard intellect of this continent will look from under its iron lids and fill the postponed expectation of the world with something better than the exertions of mechanical skill. Our day of dependence, our long apprenticeship to the learning of other lands, draws to a close. The millions that are rushing into life, cannot always be fed on the sere remains of foreign harvests" "There is some awe mixed with joy in our surprise, when this poet, who lived in some past world, two or three hundred years ago, says that which lies close to my own soul..., like the fact observed in insects, who lay up food before death for the young grub they shall never see." -reading can slow the pace of machinery and clock time; "too busy to give to letters"? -America needs to show its strength in literature, not just technology -literature is like food; "foreign harvest" metaphor: we can't just read other national literatures; we need our own literary tradition: compare to dry bones of the past

nature has a new meaning, after the rise of cities and industrialization

"to go into solitude, a man needs to retire as much from his chamber as from society...If a man would be alone, let him look at the stars" -implies that the nature of work has changes; we are no longer farmers; we are being separated from the natural world by capitalism and industrialization -when discussing the medicinal powers of the beauty of nature, Emerson refers to work that is noxious -withdrawal from the city into nature has medicinal powers for us; restores feelings of reverence (celebration of the individual) -Emerson affirms a principle shared with British Romantics: the ideal of combining adult wisdom with the spirit of infancy. or the delight and faith of the child

Bartleby's "passive resistance" and non-conformity

1) "Passive resistance": what is he resisting/protesting against? Bartleby tries to make the lawyer see the moral failures of capitalism: -"Do you not see for yourself?" he said indifferently..." -the lawyer thinks copying ruined his eyesight the lawyer blames Bartleby's "hopelessness" and despair on working for a Dead Letter Office because he will think about the dead -notice that there's also the issue of losing his job because of a change in administration which would add to his sense of having no agency or capacity for self-determination Why does he refuse to quit or settle for his wages? -Bartleby refuses to sell his labor power to the capitalist, when such exchanges happen under conditions of inequality -He is refusing to circulate as a commodity; he wants nothing to do with money -he refuses to quit or settle for his wages Bartleby affirms the Emersonian ideal of non-conformity -He has "cadaverously gentlemanly nonchalance"; he is "firm and self-possessed" -Bartleby's "pallid haughtiness" "awed" the lawyer into "tame compliance" He affirms his own freedom of choice -refuses to comply with "usages" in the office: "I prefer not to"

But: reading and literacy also help him to find community

1) Cross-racial alliances and sympathy that inspire hope -Irishmen show sympathy for Douglass and this profoundly influences his decision to run away; compare the reference to Irish emancipation from the British discussed last class -poor white children who sympathize with him and console him with the hope of freedom; solidarity with "wage slaves" -these scenes anticipate Douglass's appeal for cross-racial identification among his readers 2)reading helps Douglass to create a community and to resist by attempting to escape -later, after he leaves Mr. Covey and goes to live with Mr. Freeland, "an educated southern gentleman", Douglass was "hired" (although he has to give his wages to Thomas Auld), he teaches in a "Sabbath school" -it is eventually violently broken up by slaveholders, but Douglass emphasizes the personal gratification and community he feels with his fellow-slaves -literacy makes slaves into "moral and accountable beings" in the eyes of his white readers Douglass organizes them to attempt an escape in a canoe on the Chesapeake Bay, but they are betrayed and caught (they destroy the passes) and thrown into jail -compare and contrast with Thoreau's account of jail in "Civil Disobedience"? -Thoreau emphasizes cross-racial alliances He is in jail, and then learns that Thomas Auld is worried that he will be killed/lynched by the community, and returns him to Hugh Auld in Baltimore -He is hired out to Mr. Gardner, and learns to calk 3)literacy allows Douglass to draw on history and the rhetoric of Revolutionary war heroes- he joins this community in print -"In coming to a fixed determination to run away, we did more than Patrick Henry, when he resolved upon liberty or death. With us, it was doubtful liberty at most, and almost certain death if we failed. For my part, I should prefer death to hopeless bondage." -draws on the tradition of the American Revolution to sanction his resistance and desire to escape -reading helps him to situate his actions in a panorama of history that gives him inspiration and hope

Reflections on the Chesapeake Bay

1) Douglass's "low point" -when Douglass leaves Hugh and Sophia Auld in Baltimore to be a salve for Thomas Auld (who had an argument with his brother, Hugh, and wanted to punish him), this is a key turning point: Douglass says he can now "give dates" and this is in March, 1832 -he has a "number of differences" with his master, who says that "city life" has ruined him as a slave -Douglass is sent to be broken by Mr. Covey in January, 1833 -this is the low point in Douglass's narrative: "I was not, for the first time in my life, a field hand." "Scarce a week passed without his whipping me. I was seldom free from a sore back. My awkwardness was almost always his excuse for whipping me." "Mr. Covey gave us enough to eat, but scarce time to eat it." "I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery...We were worked in all weathers." "behold a man transformed into a brute!" 2)The power of language: Douglass's apostrophe on the Chesapeake Bay -what is an "apostrophe"? It is an address to a person who is not present, or a "personified" object (a non-human entity or object that is spoken to as if it were a person) -it is notable that Douglass is inspired by his use of language - in particular, his repeated ritual rhetorical act of "apostrophe" to the sailboats; an exclamatory passage or speech addressed to an absent person or a thing that is personified -he cheers himself up through his own power of language: "there is a better day coming this inspires his decision to run away -emphasizes contrast between his condition and the freedom of the boats -he talks to himself and inspires himself; we see the process ourselves this is a turning point: "You have seen how a man was made a slave, you shall see how a slave was made a man" -rhetorical figure: "Chiasmus" which involves repetition and reversal

Emerson celebrates the use of Reason (with perception of a moral law) in addition to Understanding (rational calculation)

1) Emerson was very interested in the sciences all his life: he read widely about geology, astronomy, chemistry, and especially botany. He had a detailed knowledge of the natural world, and knew the names of many plants 2) Critics have argued that Emerson's interest in science and hospitable openness to it, helped to diminish the "gulf" between science and the humanities 3) We can see this in the distinction he draws between "understanding" (or rational calculation) and "reason" (which involved a perception of moral law): - "the best read naturalist who lends an entire and devout attention to truth, will see that there remains much to learn of his relation to the world, and that it is not to be learned by any addition or subtraction or other comparison of known quantities...." - "He cannot be a naturalist, until he satisfies all the demands of the spirit."

Douglass's Narrative: The "Paratext" (Preface and Letter)

1) Garrison's "authenticating preface: -what purpose does Garrison's preface serve? Why is it there? A. Garrison was present on the speech and gives testimony that it occurred -Why is this important? Because the testimony of "colored witnesses, whether bond or free" is not considered valid, according to slave code -testimony of colored people is insufficient B. Garrison goes out of his way to say that Douglass wrote this by himself -many wouldn't believe Douglass could write -literacy is linked to humanity and capacity for rights and self-government -this shows how exceptional Douglass is, to be able to learn even under conditions of slavery -this is true and accurate C. Garrison's preface puts slavery in a comparative, global perspective -Britain's conquest and colonization of Ireland -the enslavement of a white man in Africa -slavery can occur in many different contexts and involve anyone - this invites cross-racial identification and sympathy with Douglass 2)Letter by Wendell Phillips -another important abolitionist from the Boston area. What additional purpose does this letter serve? A. Addresses the problem of "historiography" or how history is written: "the lion write history" -this is an important new perspective on American history -the slave narratives were not considered a valid source for historians until the late 1980s (considered biased) -by contrast, Phillips emphasizes the truth of the narrative as history B. emphasizes psychological and moral toll on the "soul" of the salve; not just physical hardship. This emphasizes, again the humanity of the slave C. Compares Douglass to the signers of the Declaration of Independence

Emerson is clearly inspired by the historical development of the abolitionist movement and, eventually, emancipation of the West Indies by the British in 1834

1) He recalls the story of the abolitionist Granville Sharpe, and a young scholar, Thomas Clarkson, who wrote a thesis at Cambridge University that attacked slavery -as a result of this, Clarkson was drawn into the abolitionist movement, and attracted the attention and support of the politician, William Wilberforce, who was a member of Parliament -Wilberforce eventually passed a bill abolishing the slave trade in 1807, after three hundred thousand people in Britain boycotted West Indian produce -the abolitionists eventually passed a bill for gradual emancipation, so that "from and after August 1, 1834, slavery shall be and is hereby utterly and forever abolished an declared unlawful through out the British colonies, plantations, and possessions abroad." 2)Emerson calls this the "moral revolution" of Emancipation -"This event was a moral revolution.... [All] was achieved by plain means of plain men, working not under a leader, but under a sentiment. Other revolutions have been the insurrection of the oppressed; this was the repentance of the tyrant. It was the masters revolting from their mastery." -lack of leadership; this was a grass-roots movement that began with "plain men." -repentance of the masters, not an insurrection 3) Crucially, he argues that slavery "enslaves" the slaveholder and that the oppression of slaves "recoils" on him: - "It was shown to the planters that they, as well as the negroes, were slaves; that though they paid no wages, they got very poor work; [...] and that they needed the severest monopoly laws at home to keep them from bankruptcy. The oppression of the slave recoiled on them. They were full of vices [...], and, like other robbers, they could not sleep in security." 4) He echoes "The American Scholar" here: -"Slavery is no scholar, no improver [of society] [...] everything goes to decay." 5) Emerson says that the appeal to Conscience will ultimately be universal - "Conscience rolled on its pillow, and could not sleep. [...] The blood is moral: the blood is anti-slavery. [...] Well, so it happened; a good man or woman, a country-boy or girl, [...] once in a while saw these injuries, and had the indiscretion to tell of them. The horrid story ran and flew; the winds blew it all over the world."

Emerson affirms the equality of Black Americans, and condemns the "indecent nonsense" of white supremacy and the inferiority of Blacks

1) He says "A man is added to the human family...the black man's day has dawned...the emergence of this long repressed race will be welcomed in the world 2)Emerson affirms the ideal of the transparent eye-ball and the figure of what he calls the "anti-slave," where "black or white is an insignificance": - "The might and the right are here: here is the anti-slave: here is man: and if you have man, black or white is an insignificance. The intellect,--that is miraculous! Who has it, has the talisman: his skin and bones, though they were of the color of night, are transparent, and the everlasting stars shine through, with attractive beams." 3) Emerson invokes the heroic actions and resistance of black leaders in the Caribbean, like Toussaint Louverture, who led the revolution in Haiti, celebrating "the arrival in the world of such men as Toussaint, and the Haytian heroes, or of the leaders of their race in Barbados and Jamaica" -this affirms racial equality, and the ideal of what Emerson calls the "anti-slave," a Black person who carries the "indispensable element of a new and coming civilization" -Frederick Douglass was another speaker at this event. As Gougeon notes, in an earlier draft of his speech, Emerson actually mentioned Douglass, identifying him with the "Anti-Slave," and he knew about Douglass, having read his writings published in antislavery journals. -after hearing this speech, Douglass was inspired to write the first version of his autobiography

Thoreau's puposes

1) His purpose is to give us hope for change in our mode of life: "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation... When we consider what, to use the words of the catechism, is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessaries of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other. Yet they honestly think there is no choice left. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear.... What everybody echoes or in silence passes by as true to-day may turn out to be falsehood to-morrow, mere smoke of opinion." 2) He wants to "wake [his] neighbors up" -dawn imagery is central: -Anecdote concerning Ch'eng T'ang, first king of Shang dynasty, whose washbasin was inscribed with the phrase "Renew thyself completely each day; do it again and again, and forever again" -he constantly revisits the theme of awakening in order to describe it ~a "newly acquired force and aspirations from within"; morning is "within him" ~a belief that each day contains a more sacred hour than he has already seen ~the source of all poetry and art ~awakening involves a "conscious endeavor" to "elevate" our lives 3) living "deliberately" and in the moment, which results from living simply: -this is related to perceiving more deeply; penetrating the surface of things -Find "reality" even amidst the "slush" of opinion and prejudice -Thoreau uses the image of reaching the bottom of the pond, "downward through the mud and slush of opinion, and prejudice, and tradition, and delusion...till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality..." 4)another purpose is that he wants to affirm the value of culture -in "Economy": Thoreau intends to affirm the value of "culture" that is more than "agriculture," the cultivation of fields ~he insists that US culture is too thin: "But are the more pressing wants satisfied now? The country is not yet adapted to human culture, and we are still forced to cut our spiritual bread far thinner than our forefathers did their wheaten" ~he regards books as ranking next to necessaries, and notes how cheap they are

The "public sphere": How is it defined in the paratext? What is its significance for Douglass?

1) How is the public sphere defined? The rise of print culture and the "media" -during this period, the rise of print culture associated with reform movements. Abolitionists and left-learning journals, etc. -underscores the importance of newspapers such ad the Baltimore American -Garrison compares Douglass to Patrick Henry, "of revolutionary fame" -Douglass: "In coming to a fixed determination to run away, we did more than Patrick Henry, when he resolved upon liberty or death" -interest in reproduction and print culture; this is part of its power -Oratory, public speaking, and "excellence": the public is a realm of visibility and admits all who are excellent, regardless of race -"The Columbian Orator" 2) What is the significance of the public sphere for Douglass in this context -Douglass gains admission to the public sphere and becomes a "man" and gives assurance that slaves are humans -he has attained the "highest point of human excellence"; this allows him entry into the public sphere -the public sphere is a space of visibility and thus is dangerous for him, as it was for the signers of the Declaration of Independence

The "main influences" on the scholar

1) Nature: teaches self-discovery, and reverence for the presence of the divine: "He shall see that nature is the opposite of the soul, answering to it part for part...Its beauty is the beauty of his own mind." 2)Books: new emphasis on the "mind of the Past" and further clarification of how to read and write -"One must be an inventor to read well"; there is creative reading as well as creative writing; "When the mind is braced by labor and invention, the page of whatever book we read becomes luminous with manifold allusion." 3)Action: -"Books are for the scholar's idle times." -"Action is with the scholar subordinate, but it is essential. Without it, he is not yet man. Without is, thought cannot ripen into truth." 4) Focus on language and action: -"If it were only for a vocabulary the scholar would be covetous of action. Life is our dictionary. I learn immediately from any speaker how much he has already lived, through the poverty or the splendor of his speech. Life lies behind us as the quarry from whence we get tiles and copestones for the masonry of today -action helps us to "master in...facts a language, by which to illustrate and embody our perceptions."

what solutions does Thoreau propose? How is this similar to or different from what we observe in Emerson's Nature or Melville's "Bartleby"?

1) Thoreau focuses on the "necessaries of life": Food, shelter, clothing, and fuel? -wants us to consider what we need to survive, so we don't spend all our labor on acquiring "not indispensable" luxuries -suggests that an ascetic lifestyle and "voluntary poverty" can liberate us from the marketplace 2) freedom to enter and leave the marketplace -"earned my living by the labor of my hands only" --> suggests Thoreau's distance from "civilization" and independence from society and the marketplace; contrasts with Bartleby's inability to escape -What is a "sojourner"? Temporarily resides in a place - biblical meaning is temporary dweller, neither native, nor foreigner, nor a slave -Thoreau and the "Middle Landscape" between nature and modern life ~he wants to be a "sojourner" in both "civilized life and in nature" ~Thoreau decides to live a "primitive and frontier life" while still being "in the midst of an outward civilization" ~there is a tension or conflict between the ideal of nature and the growth of technology. Thoreau refers to the newspapers, the telegraph, clothing factors/mills, and the railroad ~Thoreau says that being a sojourner gives hi, freedom, and will keep men from becoming "tools of their tools"

Delano's point of view and its limitations

1) Whose point of view? "Free and Indirect Discourse" -this narrative experiments formally with a "subjective" point of view, written in the third person -strange, exotic figurative comparisons: the sky looks like a grey "surtout"; the sea is like "waved lead that had been cooled and set in a smelter's mold" -troubles gray vapors"' birds are flying "low and fitfully"" projecting emotions onto the scene -we settle into the perspective of Captain Amasa Delano 2) Delano refuses to see evil, and thus cannot see how he is implicated in the evil of slavery -"a person of a singularly undistrustful good-nature, not liable, except on extraordinary and repeated incentives, and hardly then, to indulge in personal alarms, any way involving the imputation of malign evil in man. Whether, in view of what humanity is capable, such a trait implies, along with a benevolent heart, more than ordinary quickness and accuracy of intellectual perception, may be left to the wise to determine." -he insists he has a "clean conscience" -he offers to buy Babo -he exhibits republican impartiality in serving water, but not soft bread, sugar, and bottled cider 3)As a result of this inability to confront evil, he panics when he sees a "portent" that calls his belief in the goodness of the world into question -this happens repeatedly and makes up most of the plot of the novella: when he sees unexplained outbreaks of violence on the ship; or when sailors glance at him meaningfully; or one tells him to cut a "Gordian Knot" or solve the mystery of what is really happening -ultimately, Delano's inability to combine what Emerson would call reason and understanding leads him to be "swarmed with superstitious suspicions: and distrusts - "He was hardly midway in the narrow corridor, dim as a tunnel, leading from the cabin to the stairs, when a sound, as of the tolling for execution in some jailyard, fell on his ears. It was the echo of the ship's flawed bell striking the hour, drearily reverberated in this subterranean vault. Instantly, by a fatality not to be withstood, his mind, responsive to the portent, swarmed with superstitious suspicions." 4) The only way that Delano defends against these swarming superstitious suspicions is to simplify the world by using racist stereotypes: -stereotypes of Africans: 1)he idealizes the relationship between slave and master 2) he says that "whites...were the shrewder race" and that "blacks...were too stupid" to have formed a plot with Benito Cereno 3) He thinks that blacks are "natural valets and hairdressers" 4) his point of view is one where slave families are compared to bats 5) he says that he "takes" to (likes) Africans, "not philanthropically, but generally, just as other men to Newfoundland dogs" -stereotypes of "dark" Spaniards like Benito Cereno 1)Cereno represents a mentally "unstrung", sick imperialist who wields the power of a "dictatorship", and represents an ancient, decaying Spanish empire 2)Delano's perspective is informed by anti-Catholic stereotypes, which were common in the US at the time. When he first sees the San Dominick, he sees a "monastery" and a "shipload of monks", and later feels a "ghostly dread of Don Benito" as the mastermind of a pirates' plot in alliance with the Africans "But as a nation...these Spaniards are all an off set; the very word Spaniard has a curious, conspirator, Guy-Fawkish twang to it"

Slavery and family life

1) can't know anything about the circumstances of his birth: "want of information" -Douglass searches for this information all his life; biographers helped to document the facts -shows how history and time are altered as part of slavery (e.g. planting time, harvest time, etc); he is deprived of a sense of chronological time and progress in his own life narrative was was his father's name? -Aaron Anthony; but this is a very confusing sentence -Douglass takes his mother's name, Bailey, but eventually changes it, first to Johnson and then to Douglass 2)Natal alienation: slavery involved the loss of the ties of birth; disconnection from historical memory and sense of kingship -doesn't know who father is; slaveowners are fathers and masters and there is an economic incentive to having children with slave women -destroys bond between mother and child -discourages natural ties of affection between slave men and women: Aunt Hester is beaten for having a relationship with Ned, a slave from another plantation -As a young child, Douglass bore witness to this violence, but before he was sheltered by his grandmother, so he gained consciousness and awareness 3)Douglass's departure from Colonel Lloyd's plantation to the Aulds' house in Baltimore -Douglass casts this natal alienation as a source of strength and desire to go elsewhere -the basis for hope is in finding a home in the future

The lawyer-narrator's point of view and limitations

1) the narrator uses erudite allusions to put himself above Bartleby and intimidate the reader into believing his assertions -"original sources" for the portrait of Bartleby comes from the lawyer/narrator 2) A "safe" man who works the system: -filled with the conviction that the "easiest way of life is the best" -"unambitious" but does "a snug business among rich men's bonds, and mortgages, and title deeds." -a name dropper: Jacob Astor III - wealthiest man of his generation; Northeastern elite; made money primarily on real estate in NYC 3)He is concerned about his "conscience" -invokes Providence and wants to follow his "conscience". ButL his "conscience" only makes sure he is not "dishonored: -He is more worried about being gossiped about than anything else -"Fearful...of being exposed in the papers." 4)Prides himself on being "charitable" - but this is a self-delusion -charity is a way of "purchasing delicious self-approval": -"Charity" and loving his neighbor only helps because it curbs his angry frustration and keeps him from doing anything violent against Bartleby -"Charity" is ephemeral, and ultimately he fells repulsion, when he can't "remedy" the problem -later he concludes Bartleby is "deranges" -the similarities with Delano are striking. Both characters are unconsciously endorsing an "ideology" of the emerging capitalist wage-labor system that fits with the capitalist system of slavery -references to slavery are indirect; Virginia tobacco

The Deposition and the Problem of "historiography" (how history is written): Who writes the "true" historical narrative? Whose voice is left out>

1)At the end of the narrative, the point of view shifts, and slips outside Delano's perspective -"unperceived by the American" -during the battle at the end, there is effectively a war between the races: we are in the perspective of an anonymous, distances narrator, who only sees "Negroes"; the description refers just to races, not individuals -the "whites" board the ship, and are joined by the Spanish seamen in battling the Blacks, so that the "ship was won" ~here, the uprising of the Blacks is compared to a 1745 Catholic uprising at Preston Pans in Scotland, by Highlander (Scottish) clans against a Protestant government in Great Britain 2)We are given an authoritative court narrative or deposition, the "true history" of the voyage: Why is this here? -does it "shed light" on the preceding narrative? -is this a "key" to the story? Has the whole hidden truth been told, as the text implies? 3)this raises the question of whose perspective is given voice and visibility in the narrative and whose is left out -the "chorus" and "wailing chant" of the women on the ship points out the tragedy of the conflict -during the final race war, the blacks are compared to Indians: "Indianlike, they hurtled their hatchets"; this recalls the origins of New World society in the dehumanization of Native Americans and frontier violence -Babo, who could be regarded as the hero of the slave revolt, is hanged on the gallows or "gibbet": "Some months after, dragged to the gibbet at the tail of a mule, the black met his voiceless end." -The body was burned to ashes; but for many days, the head, that hive of subtlety, fixed on a pole in the plaza, met, unabashed the gaze of whites, and across the Plaza looked towards St. Bartholomew's church..." ~Babo's head looks "unabashed", confronting the gaze of white people, including the readers ~The reference to the church suggest how slavery compromises and corrupts the moral foundations of society as a whole

The Power of Retrospection: Douglass's References to His Narrative Point of View

1)Last time: Douglass's departure from Colonel Lloyd's plantation to the Aulds' house in Baltimore; Douglass casts this natal alienation as a source of strength and desire to go elsewhere How is Douglass able to look back, and think positively even about the most difficult times. Why is this? Because of his sense of his life's progress towards a better existence -we see this when Douglass explores the conditions of language on the plantation and his own emergence as a writer -slavers are never supposed to complain or talk back -the plantation system is like a vast totalitarian bureaucracy, and often the slaves don't even know what their master, Colonel Lloyd looks like. They can get in trouble complaining to anyone -most slaves will just say they are happy on the plantation rather than suffering the consequences 2)It's important that, given this context, we are also alerted to crucial moments where Douglass explores his own growth as a writer -he is reflecting back on memories of slavery and the legacy of the spirituals, and arranging them as a work of art -he is both "inside the circle" and outside, able to reflect on how "dehumanizing" the slave system is -he is inside the culture, but has distance and analytical perspective -right after this, he emphasizes the "soul killing" affects of slavery; alluding to an antislavery poem by the British Anglican poet William Cowper, "Slavery"; this suggests that the spirituals are powerful poetry Shows how memories are literally inscribed on his body: the gash in his foot came from freezing and is wide enough to put the "pen with which I am writing" into it -shows how far he has come in his life from childhood; emphasizes the importance of maturation and literacy -anticipates the cruelty of Mr. Covey, who gave him "a very severe whipping, cutting my back, causing the blood to run, and raising ridges on my flesh as large as my little finger" refers to "his wife's cousin" (anticipating his marriage at the end to Anna Murray) 3)Recasting his traumatic experiences as "kind providence" -the move from Talbot county to Baltimore. His master, Aaron Anthony, is sick, and Douglass has to leave the Lloyd plantation at age "7 or 8" -first mention of happiness and hope he sees his life as having been shaped by "kind providence" -he maintained a "living word of faith and spirit of hope" throughout his ordeal contrasts with the "religion of the south" which is merely a "covering for the most horrid crimes" Douglass clarifies his attack on slaveholder's Christianity in the appendix -contrasts past and present identity here again -shows how slave narratives drew on conventions of Protestant spiritual autobiography; narratives of conversion

conclusion

1)We should be explorers of our inner life; "opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought". -we should explore the "moral world". -these are frontiers of the future -"explore thyself" 2)"advance confidently in the direction of [your] dream"; this proved to be an inspiration to Gandhi and Dr. King 3)On his own writing -don't worry about being "understood" all the time -be "extravagant" and don't just praise "common sense" -Thoreau's writing should have more than one interpretation like the 4th century mystic, Kabir -His writing is like Walden's ice (obscure, but not like "mist," is is "azure" and shows the reality of the sky)

Writing, Sincerity, and Audience

1)Writing and Thoreau's project -He justifies his writing about himself, the act of autobiography ~jokes that he has only "narrow" experience of himself ~celebrates reading about another person's experience as inherently enriching of our own lives -why does Thoreau offer parables? How does he want us to read this work? ~obscurity means that he has to be reread; he teaches us how to read his own text ~contrasts his writing with newspaper articles, or telegraph messages ~"my pains were their own reward"; he is not writing for others 2) Sincerity -Problem of "sincerity" in writing -Thoreau implies that is is difficult if not impossible to write "sincerely" while he is enmeshed in society. Compare Melville's lawyer-narrator: he is too involved or implicated in the marketplace ~discussion of fashion and clothing -Relates to sincerity: men are in "masquerade" and conform to shallow trends; driving force is the factory system ~discussion of architecture: why is it important that Thoreau build his own house? -again: his book is a home that "had gradually grown from within outward; its truthfulness creates beauty, not "hollow" architectural ornaments 3) Audience -Who is his audience? He addresses himself to "poor students": those who are more objective and critical than the mainstream of American society -He is very hard on "old people" who have "no advice" to give the young and are not qualified to instruct them -critical of American education, because it is too abstract and distant from life' he believes in hands-on learning

Thoreau's criticisms of slavery are consistent throughout his career

1)criticisms of American slavery recut throughout Walden: "there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both North and South" -in the chapter titled "Former Inhabitants; and Winter Visitor," Thoreau describes the outcasts who live in Walden Woods prior to his arrival -many of them were former African -Cato Ingraham, the "slave of Duncan Ingraham" -a colored woman named Zilpha -Brister Freeman and his wife Fenda 2)In "Slavery in Massachusetts", a speech at the Anti-Slavery Society of Massachusetts, Thoreau protested the Fugitive Slave Law, which made "the whole military force of the state...at the service of a...slaveholder from Virginia, to enable him to catch a man whom he calls his property -"Neither an individual nor a nation can ever commit the least act or injustice against the obscurest individual without having to pay the penalty for it.... Much has been said about American slavery, but I think that we do not even yet realize what slavery is. If I were seriously to propose to Congress to make mankind into sausages, I have no doubt that most of the members would smile at my proposition.... But if any of them will tell me that to make a man into a sausage would be...any worse than to make him a slave—than it was to enact the Fugitive Slave Law—I will accuse him of foolishness." -he proposes an "assault on the Press" about this issue

How is nature represented?

1)library in nature -we already saw that he is a "sojourner" in civilization and also a "sojourner" in nature -he is "a part" of nature, but he also "comes and goes" with liberty and returns to his house ~"sympathy" with the fluttering leaves ~his serenity is compared to the pond itself ~Thoreau is close to civilization, and in nature at the same time. He is visible from the railroad nearby 2)In nature, he can be "beside himself" and be a companion to himself; there is a certain "doubleness" that involves participating in nature and standing outside nature 3) nature is a "society" for him; he has the friendship of the season" -"Solitude in nature is not "oppressive"; contrasted with "lonesomeness" ~he is not isolates; he has visitors etc. ~emphasis on friendship with the seasons and nature ~he is more alone in society where other minds feel far away ~working is what makes solitude pleasant, and not lonesomeness 4) nature is medicinal for Thoreau as for Emerson 5) The laws of nature and morality can and should be discovered, and we can only do so gradually -Thoreau, like Emerson, refers to the presence of divinity in nature: Platonic reference to the divine craftsman who is "next" to us in nature: "the workman whose work we are"

Thoreau's purpose, continued.

1)living deliberately means we should all strive to be lifelong students -"it is time that we had uncommon schools that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men and women" 2)Thoreau affirms the importance of dialogue with and sense of connection to other global cultures, and this requires that we read "deliberately" -"There was pasture enough for my imagination. The low shrub oak plateau to which the opposite shore arose stretched away toward the prairies of the Wet and the steppes of Tartary, affording ample room for all the roving families of men. "There are non happy in the world but beings who enjoy freely a vast horizon," - said Damodara, when his herds requires new and larger pastures." -"The heroic books even if printed in the character of our mother tongue will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the meaning of each word and line conjecturing a larger sense than common use permits out of what wisdom and valor and generosity we have." ~even if a work has been translated into our language, we might not know what it is saying ~words from another language should be "perpetual suggestions and provocations" -"That age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call Classics and the still older and more than classic but even less known Scriptures of the nations shall have still further accumulated, when the Vaticans shall be filled with Vedas and Zendavestas (Hindu and Zoroastrian scripture) and Bibles, with Homers and Dantes and Shakespeares and all the centuries to come shall have successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last." -"Most men do not know that any nations but the Hebrews have had scripture...I aspire to be acquainted with wiser men that this our Concord soil has produces..." ~affirms a universal religious discourse and suggests that there "foreign" texts speak to our condition ~books as a form of community and "acquaintance" with other people -In "The Pond in Winter," Thoreau describes (parable), a time when, during the winter of 1846-47, when a "gentleman farmer" from the village sent some "ice-men" to cut up the ice, haul it away on sleds, and take it on a "shrieking locomotive" from Walden Pond to the marketplace ~this parable leads him to reflect on a global intercultural exchange where he reads texts from far off places, and "inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta" all drink from his well

Thoreau's view about resistance evolved over time

1)nonviolent resistance in "Civil Disobedience" vs "A Plea for John Brown" after Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry supported Brown's use of violence in resisting an unjust government 2)Influence of "Civil Disobedience" on Gandhi, who published translated extracts in the newspaper he was editing, Indian Opinion in South Africa -He was fighting the Asiatic Registration Act, which required all Asiatics over 8 years of age to register and give their fingerprints, as if they were criminals -"You have given me a teacher in Thoreau..."

The Ending: New Bedford, MA

As mentioned earlier, Douglass learns a trade, to calk, when he returns to Baltimore and is hired out by Hugh Auld to Mr. Gardner in the ship yard: He experiences new violent working conditions among the apprentices; he has no power to testify against them in court. "This was my school for eight months" The competition for wages for wages spurs racial conflict among the carpenters; and Douglass anticipates a central issue during the post emancipation period, namely, lynching: "to strike a white man is death by Lynch law, -- and that was the law in Mr. Gardner's ship-yard." Eventually, Douglass is employed by Mr. Walter Price, and his "pathway becomes much more smooth than before" He escapes, but he won't give us any details -publicity by people helping slaves on the underground railroad only hurts the chances of slaves' escaping to freedom -he still feels insecure in the north, because of the Fugitive Slave Law -even more than this, he feels lonely and without a home "I was relieved from [the distressed situation] by the humane hand of Mr. David Ruggles, whose vigilance, kindness, and perseverance, I shall never forget." -Ruggles was an underground railroad coordinator and abolitionist -Douglass underscores the importance of individual action and agency He gets marries (having changes his name from Bailey to Johnson) -With the help of Mr. Nathan Johnson, he chooses the name Douglass from Walter Scott's poem, "Lady of the Lake," which features as its hero, the freedom fighter James Douglass, a knight who played a key role in the wars for independence in Scotland He travels to New Bedford MA, and has a positive impression, that "disappoints" his erroneous assumption that they are poor because they don't own slaves -he sees men working with a sense of dignity as men -working men were more educated and had better moral understanding that Southern gentlemen He became "own master" -work is happier -"it was the starting point of a new existence"

No view. What does this imply? Isolation from the restorative powers of nature

Bartleby's view: "no view at all". Suggest social hierarchy. -"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 back-yards and bricks, but which, owing to subsequent erections, commanded at present no view at all, though it gave some light." "for long periods he would stand looking out, at his pale window behind the screen, upon the dead brick wall"

The battle with Mr. Covey: physical resistance as inspiration

Douglass emphasizes not just the power of rhetoric, but rhetoric that is accompanied by action in the world the root which Sandy Jenkins gives him is supposed to protect him from Mr. Covey, but the suggestion here is that the psychological help it might have given him, as well as bravery and resistance, are what make this scene important -it also contrasts the root (and superstition) with the act of physical resistance --> Douglass fights back Compare Len Gougeon on Emerson, Douglass, and militant abolitionism: this is a "turning-point" for Douglass: "It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood...It was a glorious resurrection, from the tomb of slavery, to the heaven of freedom." Covey never hurts him again: Mr. Covey wanted to protect his reputation, and thus he didn't take Douglass to the constable Douglass leaves to work for Mr. Freeland -But is Douglass in a truly "free land"? Not yet... -" I will give Mr. Freeland the credit of being the best master I ever had, till i became my own master

Reading deliberately

Douglass knew that stakes were high in his ability to communicate with his readers there are many reflections on the conditions of language on the plantation, and his own struggle to achieve literacy many white readers would have doubted that Douglass could write In his Narrative, Douglass draws on literary and rhetorical conventions that would be familiar with his white readers, but uses them in a new way to help them grasp the injustice of slavery the style of the Narrative is deceptively simple; in fact it warrants a close, careful, deliberate analysis, both in terms of Douglass's technique and in the content of scenes he chooses to present

The "home plantation": Douglass refutes the pastoral myth of the plantation and exposes the economy of slavery

Douglass wants to expose the myth of the plantation as a happy home for slaves -Douglass's master, Captain Aaron Anthony, was a superintendent on Colonial Lloyd's plantation -his family members lived on this "home plantation" -this is not a "home". They raise tobacco, corn, and wheat and own a ship (Sally Lloyd) that takes these commodities to Baltimore -slavery blurs the boundaries between family and business -this is a big agribusiness: the "home plantation" was "the great business place" and "the seat of government for the whole twenty farms" surrounding it, all owned by Colonel Edward Lloyd -children are not given shoes or jackets when they worked in the fields; there are no beds. They are given "mush" and treated like "pigs" -this is comparable to a mechanized system of production: there is no time for anything but work -Douglass destroys the myth that the plantation is help together by ties of affection between master and slave, as a happy family The violence of slavery is maintaining social order in a system that would otherwise fall apart and, according to the overseer Mr. Gore, this would result in "the enslavement of whites"

Thoreau resembles Emerson in some respects with regard to his representations of nature

Emerson calls attention to Nature as a scripture or text -For Thoreau, nature becomes more than a "book," it is a physical embodiment of "living poetry"

The office space and conditions of work

Emerson describes a "noxious" work environment in Nature working conditions changed during the shift from pre-industrial economy to an industrial economy in the US population growth in NYC: from 124,000 to 814,000 between 1820 and 1860 Office buildings; skyscrapers were replacing earlier buildings, which were destroyed

Emersonian individuality: the transparent eyeball?

Emerson's portrayal of nature suggests that the wilderness is his community: "In the wilderness, I find something more dear and connate than in streets or villages. In the tranquil landscape, and especially in the distant line of the horizon, man beholds somewhat as beautiful as his own nature." Nature allows him to escape the metaphorical slavery associated with his involvement in society; he is a guest and never tires of what he sees: "In the woods, is perpetual youth. Within these plantations of God, a decorum and sanctity reign, a perennial festival is dressed, and the guest sees not how he should tire of them in a thousand years...The name of the nearest friend sounds then foreign and accidental. To be brothers, to be acquaintances - master or servant, is then a trifle and a disturbance." Emerson is selfless and also everything -Emerson does away with mean egotism - identification with Universal Being There is a clear rejection of society and community norms here -the relation of the individual to the community (how the labor of the individual relates to the broader) is not directly addressed

by his own account. Thoreau's act of disobedience, not paying his poll tax and going to prison, "dissolved his ties" to the State - we saw a version of this effort earlier with regard to the marketplace in Walden

He calls on abolitionists to "withdraw their support, both in person and in property, from the government of Mass." -Later he says "I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually Specifically, he "dissolved" his union to the State by refusing to "pay [his] quota into its treasury." -"I have paid no poll-tax for six years. I was put into jail once on this account, for one night." This was "civil" insofar as it was no violent, and he put principle into action: later he calls his act of disobedience a "peaceable revolution": -"If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure.... This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution."

for Thoreau, as for Emerson, nature is a better source for our education than "histories, chronologies, and all written revelations (or scriptures)."

He shows how the arrival of spring reveals to us our own immortality Spring dramatizes the "creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age" Spring is a source of hope

Compare to "commodity" section in Nature: one of the three "uses" of nature

In Commodity, Emerson describes how nature provides raw materials and energy for everything we need to eat and survive commodities are what "our senses owe to nature"; things we consume - this is a "temporary and mediate" benefit, not the same as nature's "service to the soul." -mediate means serving to bring about a larger purpose nature serves man like a mother serves a child - "the endless circulations of the divine charity nourish man" here: technology is merged with nature, because "nature...is not only the material, but is also the process and the result. All the parts incessantly work into each other's hands for the profit of man." all technological progress - steam, railroad, post-office: complex machinery associated with modern life - is the result of this unending process of "aid" Emerson says that a moral law must prevail here -"This mercenary benefit is one which has respect to a farther good. A man is fed, not that he may be fed, but that he may work." Emerson wants capitalism to flourish in a world guided by a moral law -don't unleash the powers of nature for money alone

Revolution in Haiti and in France

In this story, Melville is also thinking about slave rebellion in the context of the Haitian Revolution: "Saint-Domingue" was the name of the French colony that eventually became Haiti after the revolution began in 1791, and Benito Cereno's Spanish slave ship is called the "San Dominick" At the same time that a revolution (French Revolution) can affirm principles of democracy, it can also result in a Reign of Terror and dictatorship, like that which arose in the wake of the French Revolution in 1793-94 -we see this in the shaving scene, when Babo cuts Cereno as he is telling the story of what happened on the ship as a threat, but Delano fails to understand what is happening: "Just then the razor drew blood" The scene recalls the beheading associated with the Reign of Terror: "Altogether the scene was somewhat peculiar, at least to Captain Delano, nor, as he saw the two thus postured, could he resist in the vagary that in the black he saw a headsman, and in the white a man at the block."

Thoreau's symbol of the pond is not a commodity

Last time we discussed the gentleman farmer, who wants to sell the ice and sends it to market on a "shrieking locomotive" contrasts with Thoreau, who describes Walden pond as a "deep and pure symbol" -it accrues meaning over time; this adds to its depth -hints at the importance of the symbolic depth of the pond - if all ponds were shallow, men would not develop a deep and reflective inner life -there is a spiritual education associated with symbolism as well; believing in the figuratively "infinite" depth of a pond

compare the "language" section in Nature: the third "use" of nature:

Nature provides us with a language; it is a "vehicle of thought" Emerson asserts that there is a universal language in nature that we all share" A. Words and things are "emblematic" (or "symbolic" or metaphorical) and thus express "a spiritual import" or psychological meaning -"every natural fact is a symbol of some spiritual fact. Every appearance in nature corresponds to some state of the mind." -light = knowledge -darkness = ignorance -rock = a firm man -torch = a learned man B. These analogies are "constant" and universal; the language of nature is universal -"The same symbols are found to make the original elements of all languages" C. Natural facts have no life or unity without some connection to human life and human nature. They must become meaningful metaphors for our experience: -Doctrine of "correspondences" between nature and spiritual facts -This example he chooses if from the New Testament (1 Corinthians), where Paul compares the human corpse to a seed

What is the "office" or duty of the scholars? (Emerson and the problem of vocation)

New emphasis on nonconformity, freedom, and bravery: -"the office of the scholar is to cheer, to raise, and to guide men by showing them facts amidst appearances. He plies the slow, unhonored, and unpaid task of observation...He is the world's eye. He is the world's heart. And whatsoever new verdict Reason from her inviolable seat pronounces...--this he shall hear and promulgate. These being his functions, it becomes him to feel all confidence in himself, and never defer to the popular cry. In silence, in steadiness, in severe abstraction, let him hold by himself; add observation to observation; patient of neglect, patient of reproach, and bid his own time—happy enough if he can satisfy himself alone that this day he has seen something truly." "Free should the scholar be, -- free and brave." -he is not a protected class that escapes from social problems "I believe man has been wronged: he has wronged himself... Men in history, men in the world of today are bugs, are spawn, and are called 'the mass' and 'the herd.'" Invokes the ideal of self-reliance -"For the ease and pleasure of treading the old road, accepting the fashions, the education, the religion of society, he takes the cross of making his own, and, of course, the self accusation, the faint heart, the frequent uncertainty and loss of time, which are the nettles and tangling vines in the way of the self-relying and self-directed"

Introduction: Melville's "Bartleby"

On the one hand, probusiness interests defended the "ideology of entrepreneurial benevolence," affirming that capitalism will "lift all boats" and benefit the poor On the other hand, against this view, reformers attacked the injustices of the marketplace, and warned about growing inequality, which would lead to the excesses of the Gilded Age

Introduction to Nature (Emerson)

Theme: cultural nationalism -turning away from the dry bones of tradition national culture was a stale culture of mimicry intellectual declaration of independence from Great Britain

How is society represented in "The Village"?

Thoreau emphasizes that solitude and the benefits of nature are available even in a modern, industrializing civilization 1)Because he as "liberty" to "go and come", society in the village also feels less oppressive and burdensome: he takes gossip in "homeopathic doses" 2)He is able to reshape social relations in his own terms: he discovers the "infinite extent" of his relations, rather than being trapped in the village as a community 3)He compares society in "The Village" to a news-room -writing as a commodity -we are numbered by our reading of the news and turned into stone carvings: why? -the news blows through us like "Etesian winds" (summer winds in Greece) 4)Even being lost on the way home from civilization back to nature is regarded as positive and beneficial: why? He better appreciates the "vastness and strangeness of nature." He becomes more conscious and deliberate; awakened to the "infinite extent of our relation." 5)"Resistance to Civil Government" which was published in the Aesthetic Papers in 1849, is referred to in "The Village" where Thoreau describes how he refused to pay his poll tax

Thoreau's utopian vision

Thoreau imagines a more perfect State, and insists that it is possible, even though it does not yet exist: -"I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men... A State which bore this kind of fruit...would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which also I have imagined, but not yet anywhere seen." This is a state where no government is necessary, because every individual perceives and obeys a single, moral law associated with the claims of conscience

Refers to the importance of the claims of an individual's conscience, which sanctions breaking an unjust law, so that you do not become a mechanical tool of the government

Thoreau raises and revises Emerson's claim about the "dry bones" of tradition -here, he says that government is a "tradition" that can and should be changed for the better "A very few, as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men, serve the State with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated by it as enemies." The government "has not the vitality and force of a single living man" "Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong but conscience... Must the citizen ever for a moment resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience then?.... The only obligation which I have a right to assume, is to do at any time what I think right." Thoreau identifies his conscience with "higher law": -They only can force me who obey a higher law than I. Thoreau contrasts "conscience" which involved action, with "opinion" -"There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them." the "rule of expediency" does not apply when we are helping slaves who have been harmed harmed by us

"Economy" and the Marketplace

Thoreau tries to minimize his ties to the marketplace; his "escape" is different from Bartleby's in this regard 1)There is a central issue raised in "Economy": -people are "doing penance"; their "labor is endless ~they are burdened by their inheritance of farms, land, etc., because this requires endless labor -this endless laboring for money and property is a mistake: New Englanders focus solely on material things to give their lives meaning ~they think it is necessary to spend their whole life "laying up treasures which moth and ruse will corrupt" -there is a factory system in place in New England, which does not improve life for ordinary people, only corporations -this system of endless labor hurts the moral life of the nation: ~they are laboring too hard, and have no "leisure for a true integrity day by day": -if they spend time sustaining "manliest" relations to other people, they will lose money -we are dehumanized, and turned into machines in this system -he sees this life as a form of slavery ~he calls on his readers to emancipate themselves from mental slavery; the "provinces of fancy and imagination": -Thoreau wants to reveal the similarity between slavery in the South and wage-slavery in Northern cities: he protests inequality and working conditions for laborers

other employees in the office

What is indicated by the condition and reactions of other workers in the office? nicknames are dehumanizing? 1)Turkey: the problem of aging in the capitalist system -Turkey is aging, drinks, is threatened by no longer being perceived as useful; is "insolent" in the afternoons. -breaks up his pen instead of mending it and flies into a "sudden passion" of frustration -"there was a strange, inflames, flurries, flighty recklessness of activity about him." -asserts the "honor" of old age in a system where he can be replaced 2) Nippers: lack of upward mobility and job satisfaction: "victim of ambition and indigestion" -physical stress and discomfort at the writing desk -would meet people and call them his clients; sometimes drew up original legal documents himself -"knew not what he wanted" 3) Ginger Nut: there is no apprenticeship system here -father wanted him to learn about law -didn't use his desk except to collect nutshells; his job was the buy apples and cake for the scriveners

"The American Scholar vs. Nature: continuities and new departures in Emerson's thought

a formative moment in Emerson's own career: his invention of the intellectual, the scholar as an identity, after deciding to withdraw from the ministry in 1832

Benito Cereno: slavery and revolution as central themes

based on a slave revolt that occurred in 1804 on the Tryal, a Spanish vessel, that was reported in an 1817 travelogue by a sea captain

Emerson's "Address on the Anniversary of the Emancipation in the British West Indies"

commemorates emancipation in the Caribbean by the British in 1834 Emerson had become more militant in his attitude towards slavery, as the slaveholding powers in the US pushed to annex Texas as a slave state

In Nature, Emerson is trying to return our language to nature, to restore the close connection between language and nature: for this scholar, this is done through action

corruption of man is followed by the corruption of language: "a paper currency is employed when there is no bullion in the vaults. In due time, the fraud is manifest, and words lose all power to stimulate the understanding or the affections." living close to nature will make your language better and more truthful: "wise men pierce this rotten diction and fasten words again to visible things...These facts may suggest the advantage which the country-life possesses for a powerful mind, over the artificial and curtailed life of cities."

Binary oppositions or contrasting images and ideas

fathers vs. mothers; old past vs, new present and future Emerson wants us to turn away from the dry bones and sepulchres (graves) and a masquerade out of a faded wardrobe associated with the fathers (past) nature is compared to a mother, associated with images of "floods of life", sunlight, and nurturing ("stretched out her arms to embrace man...her darling child" tradition vs. insight: He wants America to have a living tradition, not a history of what was said and done in the past -Emerson wanted Americans to think self-consciously about independence from Britain in literary terms; a literary revolution -don't imitate blindly (mimicry) past vs present; emphasis on new and our own culture

Thoreau was against the 1846-1848 war with Mexico, which began when the US annexed Texas. Abolitionists saw the war as an attempt by slave states to extend slavery and enhance their power

he suggests that by endorsing slavery and pursuing this war, the American government was enslaving all Americans who had an "undue respect for law"- turning them into things -military men going to "wars against their will, aye, against their common sense and consciences...Now what are they? Men at all? Or small movable forts and magazines, at the service of some unscrupulous man in power?" "How does it become a man to behave toward this American government to-day?... I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave's government also." "How many men are there to a square thousand miles in this country? Hardly one."

Scriptural allusions are used to revisit and recreate tradition

sepulchres of the fathers echoes the New Testament (Luke 11:47): Woe to you! For ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and your fathers killed them "dry bones of the past" cf. Ezekiel 37 (dry bones brought back to life) "foregoing generations beheld God and nature face to face"; cf. Corinthians 13:12--> "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face..." Emerson says Americans should turn to nature for inspiration and insight, instead of "tradition." -there is also a lot of "allusion" to other national literatures and cultures, showing various "influences" -Emerson draws on Eastern religious writings (Hinduism) which he read in college (Brahmins) -Emerson is drawing on international influences, enhancing an emerging US national literature

In "The Pond in Winter," Thoreau's reflection on nature refer to his own project as a writer

the beautiful pickerel are exotic they are not sold in the market the "Waldenses" refers to a sect of religious dissenters founded by Peter Waldo in France in 1170. -Thoreau was a descendent of the French Huguenots Thoreau is placing his own critique of American society within a larger framework of religious dissent that follows from the Reformation the description of the pickerel's death also refers to Thoreau's own writing as an act of martyrdom and transcendence -he died virtually unknown, except by his close friends who would help him to achieve posthumous fame

separation of work and home; urban "anomie" and alienation

the city is described on Sundays: "Wall Street is deserted as Petra" loneliness/solitude of city life; Durkheim would popularize the term "anomie" in his book on suicide; society is providing no moral guidance; lack of shared social life and standards -the individual's actions are not integrated into a larger community and system of social norms and practices work and home like are completely compartmentalized and separate: -the office, "entirely unhalllowed by humanizing domestic associations," is a place where acts of "irritable desperation" occur

Education, Literacy, and Freedom

the correlation of freedom with literacy is a recurring trope in the slave narratives 1)Douglass's new mistress is Sophia Auid, who is "by trade, a weaver": why is this important? -she is distanced from the slave system, and taught him to spell words until his master stopped her 2)"learning" and the path to freedom -understands the importance of learning to read, because he hears his master is against it. Houston Baker: Sudden awareness of "possibilities that lie beyond anguish" -He discloses his anguish only when he discovers a source of "high hope, and a fixed purpose" Douglass contrasts his own improvement with Sophia's decline - suggests the corruption of the slave system on the masters -power corrupts Sophia Auld -slavery is bad for those who own slaves; "the tender heart became stone" -she decides that "education and slavery are incompatible" 3)Douglass's discovery of "The Columbian Orator" when he was 12 -demonstrates the power of literacy and oratory -shows possibility of dialogue between master and slave, a counterexample to the language situation he had grown up with on the plantation -the slave exerts power over the master, and refuted his arguments in favor of slavery. The slave wins his freedom through persuasion and oratory -In the same book he discovery Richard Sheridan's speeches on behalf of Catholic Emancipation in the late 18th century -he learns how to write in the Durgin and Bailey shipyard, and from Mater Thomas;s copy book 4)Education and freedom are related in a literal, practical sense: Douglass wants to learn to write so he can write his own pass and escape -he learns from other boys in the shipyard; and reads the copy books left behind by master's son - until he learns how to write -Douglass resolves to run away 5) Douglass is transformed by reading, and even feels anguish, as a result of his new knowledge and insight -why did he feel that learning to read was a curse? -"The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness." -admits to having thoughts of suicide

COnclusion

the lawyer is summoned to make a statement about the "facts" of his case, which is comparable to the "deposition" and the end of "Benito Cereno" -but does he really know what happened? what does the bias of the narrator/lawyer conceal from the reader and from the narrator himself? -he says "there would seem little need for proceeding further in this history" at the end, he quotes scripture, saying that Bartleby is "asleep," "With kings and counselors of the earth, who built desolate places for themselves" -this suggest that power and wealth, by themselves, do not constitute the conditions for a good, meaningful life the "dead letter" is also a failed communication, and is a metaphor for Bartleby's failure to communicate with the lawyer -the letter could also represent Melville's story and our work to interpret it fully and correctly Contract Bartleby's "passive resistance" with Thoreau's "Civil disobedience," and use of symbolic action: Bartleby's protest is unseen and unacknowledged -highlights the importance of having visibility for protest and an informed "public" -Melville's story educates us to look more closely at how the economy shapes the way we think

Social hierarchy implied by the organization of space in the office

the lawyer-narrator praises the view from his own window, even though it is lousy -"My chambers...looked upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious skylight shaft.... [M]y windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall, which...required no spyglass to bring out its lurking beauties." "within easy call, in case any trifling thing was to be done. I resolved to assign Bartleby a corner by the folding-doors, but on my side of them, so as to have this quiet man within easy call, in case any trifling thing was to be done.... Still further to a satisfactory arrangement, I procured a high green folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from my sight, though not remove him from my voice." -lack of social mobility -symbolic spatial hierarchy in the fact that he can be called, but not seen by his boss (surveillance)

Slavery

the national crisis over slavery was heating up in the decade culminating in the Civil War. This story reflects on the question of how there can be a peaceful transition to emancipation in the US 1850 was the year the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, effectively extending slavery to the North, because escaped slaves were returned to their Southern masters Melville understood that slavery had vast consequences for the US in his own day, and would continue to do so in the future -we see this in a conversation between Delano and Benito Cereno - "'But the past is passed; why moralize upon it? Forget it. See, yon bright sun has forgotten it all, and the blue sea, and the blue sky; these have turned over new leaves. 'Because they have no memory [...].' 'But these mild trades that now fan your cheek, do they not come with a humanlike healing to you? Warm friends, steadfast friends are the trades. [...] You are saved [...], you are saved: what has cast such a shadow upon you?' 'The Negro.'"

Thoreau says that by withdrawing from the unjust State, the "prison" becomes the only place where a "free man can abide with honor"

the prison becomes a place where he is allied with the fugitive slave, the Mexican, and the Indian