Do We Really Have A Choice
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Submitted by kehah74 on 06/30/2008 05:21 PM
- Category: Psychology
- Words: 1046
- Pages: 5
- Views: 7
- Popularity Rank: 8186
Do We Really Have A Choice
We all have responsibilities in our lives that demand our attention. Students have the responsibility of attaining an education; parents have the responsibility of caring for their children's needs, etc. However, just because it is our responsibility to accomplish or take care of a task, is it mandatory for us to do so? Though we may feel trapped in a corner, like the main characters in "Bartleby, the Scrivener", we do have a choice. We can "prefer not to" (Melville 620) take care of our responsibilities as Bartleby did, or like the narrator, we can tirelessly fulfill them because it is the right thing to do. The contrasts in these characters represent the inner-conflict that exists within all humans. We go through a daily process of decision-making. For the sake of keeping peace or maybe to keep our own peace of mind, we often choose to do the right thing.
The narrator chose to live this way. After hiring Bartleby and realizing that he "would prefer not to" (Melville 620) take on any of the tasks requested of him, the narrator only contemplated firing him. Even when the narrator found out that Bartleby was living in his office, he could not bring himself to throw the man out or have him arrested. Any sort of negative action on the narrator's part did not seem, to him, the right thing to do. He was tormented by an inner-conflict when he pondered what his next move would be. "Turn the man out by an actual thrusting I could not; to drive him away by calling him hard names would not do; calling in the police was an unpleasant idea; and yet, permit him to enjoy his cadaverous triumph over me, -this too I could not think of. What was to be done?" (Melville 632). The narrator could not do what he wanted to do, which was to get rid of Bartleby, because he felt guilty. He therefore did what he was supposed to do, which was helping Bartleby. Yet, Bartleby's hold on the narrator was self-inflicted.
The narrator made the choice to allow...
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