Whatever else it may be “Bartleby the Scrivener” (see
previous post) raises the ethical question of our responsibility to our fellow
human beings. Are we our brother’s
keeper? And, if so, what does that mean?
How far do we take it?
I suspect most contemporary readers would say that the
lawyer goes way beyond the call of duty by allowing Bartleby to get away with
refusing to work and taking up residence at his workplace. At one point, the lawyer even offers to take
him into his home, but Bartleby “prefers not to.”
Our culture puts a high value on self-reliance and
individual responsibility. If Bartleby
refuses to work for a living and provide for himself, then he deserves the
consequences. Even a reader who believes
in charity and humane treatment of the undeserving might lose all sympathy when
Bartleby refuses the lawyer’s offer of taking him home.
At one point the lawyer recalls the scripture of John
13:34: “A new commandment I give unto
you, that you love one another.” If the
story constitutes a test of how well the lawyer treats the “least of these” as
if they were Christ himself, does it also suggest that such a high standard of
brotherly love is completely unrealistic?
Are Christian ethics, taken literally, completely unrealistic in the
human realm? Just how far are we
expected to take them? Does that make
the story a critique of Christianity as an impossibly ideal code that is doomed
to failure? Or is it a critique of
society and its failure to organize itself in a way that is compatible with and
supportive of such a high standard of behavior?
Or both?
Another story that raises these questions is “The Bishop and
the Candlesticks,” found at the beginning of Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables.
Jean Valjean has been released from prison (actually as a
rower, chained to his seat in a sailing ship).
He had initially been sentenced to five years for stealing a loaf of
bread to feed his starving family, but his repeated attempts to escape had
added 14 more years. Imprisonment has
hardened him, and, upon his release, he is treated cruelly by the local
townspeople until one of them finally sends him to the door of the bishop.
Unlike Bartleby’s lawyer, the bishop immediately takes the
homeless stranger into his home, gives him a hot meal, and prepares him a bed
to sleep in. In the middle of the night
Jean Valjean awakes and, after some indecision, steals the bishop’s silver
plates and disappears into the night.
The next day he is captured with the “goods” and brought to the bishop,
who tells the gendarmes that he had freely given the man the silver. When the gendarmes leave, the bishop gives
Jean Valjean his two silver candlesticks stating, “It is your soul I am buying
for you. I withdraw it from dark thoughts and from the spirit of perdition and
give it to God.” As we know (Les Miserables having entered into
popular culture), Jean Valjean goes on to use this gift to make a new start,
live an honest life, care for a dying prostitute, raise her orphaned child as
his own, save his adopted daughter's lover from death, and, having been redeemed by the kindly
bishop, die a man of goodness and faith.
Is the bishop a type of Christ who saves Jean Valjean? Is he a saint? Or is he a foolish idealist who is fortunate
Jean Valjean did not murder him in his sleep before stealing the silver? (All this rather overlooks the bishop’s lie
to the gendarmes.)
Read realistically, the bishop is a less than credible
character who is almost laughably virtuous.
Is that to say that his ethics are too good for this world? That in real life he would have been quickly
exploited by evildoers and sent to his death?
That such goodness could not realistically survive?
Similarly, how realistic is it that a convict mistreated as
badly as Jean Valjean would truly reform as a result of the bishop’s one act of
compassion and faith?
When we say the story is unrealistic, are we saying that the
Christian ethic, when taken literally, is an impossible ideal? Or are we saying that reality inevitably fails
to live up to such a high standard of virtue?
But, of course, neither story is meant to be read
realistically. Both make more sense read
as Christian allegory, challenging its (Christian) readers to a higher, more
virtuous life, however far that may end up being from the ideal.
In the case of “Bartleby,” however, I do think a valid case
could be made, based on other works by Melville (the novel Pierre for example) that the story critiques Christianity for its
impractical, if not impossible, expectations for human virtue. At the same time, its focus on Wall Street and
American capitalism suggests that it may be the hypocrisy of a so-called
Christian nation that is Melville’s other, equally important, target.
No comments:
Post a Comment