Saturday May 21st:

Bartleby was one of the main characters in “Bartleby the Scrivener”. Bartleby was an un-ordinary man that worked for a writer. The writer already had three employees in his office, which was split into two parts, the workers in one part and the man in his own. Once the man brought Bartleby into the office he placed him on his said so that he could help him with things that he needed. Every time the man would ask any of the workers besides Bartleby to do something that would, but Bartleby would always respond with “I would prefer not to”. This infuriated the man but instead of getting mad he always let it by. I thought that is very unordinary for a person because usually when you are hired at a job you do what is asked of you instead of always saying you prefer not to. Everything this occurred the man would always ask the others what they would do hearing the response from Bartleby and it was always something bad. The man finally came to the conclusion that Bartleby would copy the works but he refused to examine the work so that job was pasted on to Nippers and Turkey.

The man started to notice weird things about Bartleby and he soon determine that Bartleby had made his office like his home, he kept his personal money in it, he never ate out, he didn’t drink coffee, he never went out on walks or even complained to be ill. The man thought this to be very weird because many men participated in one if not many of the things listed above. As the story progresses the man does whatever he can so that he can get rid of Bartleby even if it includes him going to jail. In the ending of the story Bartleby still refuses to do anything that is asked of him and the man does nothing. In the end the truth comes out and Bartleby used to be the clerk in the dead letter office but he was suddenly removed. I think that from that Bartleby suffers from some type of illness due to the fact he was removed like that. I think that Bartleby found it hard to give up something that he loved to she refused to do anything else so that if that thing got taken away he wouldn’t suffer.

The “Sunflower Sutra” is a poem that expresses a man’s view of a sunflower. The main takes the sunflower that has died and examines it to a “t”. The main determines the reason for the sunflower being dead and covered with dust, smut, smog, and smoke. The man sees the sunflower as being places into a setting where it is filled with pollution and the sunflower has no hope of surviving. After reading articles on this poem I can see the resemblances of how the sunflower demonstrates America because America was a beautiful country and it has been placed in a setting where there is nothing but tons of pollution and it has suffered from this.  

Non-conformity is shown by Melville though Bartleby because he is different from the rest of the workers and he doesn’t change himself to fit it. Bartleby is a unique person that is trying to be analyzed through the entire story. In Ginsberg poem he demonstrates non-conformity by seeing s sunflower hat should be full of life and it resembles death due to its setting. I think that they both are like Lady Gaga because they strive to be different just like her. The benefits and pitfalls seem to be the same to me if you aren’t like everyone else you are seemed to be wired and different but if you are like everyone else then you are seem as equal and being equal isn’t always a good thing.

These two stories remind me of high school for some reason. I guess because most people try and be like everyone else so they can be equal but it reality its suppose to be a place where you find yourself and set yourself apart form everyone else!