Recently in School Category

I'm taking a fifteen-minute break from working on this massive final paper for my Chaucer class. So instead of smoking a cigarette, I'll vent a little, get this off my chest, then dive right back in for several more hours.

I hate writing research papers. I'm a Creative Writing student. I write, surprisingly enough, creatively. I despise, with almost every thread of my being, the whole concept of the Research Paper. It's really a pointless exercise in self-flagellation.

It's pointless because it's never about what you say, but about how you say it. You can get an "A" on a paper by writing 15 pages of the most obvious things about the story you can think of and, if you're a detail person and get the exact right number of sources (who cares what they think, BTW), make sure you're using periods instead of commas on your Works Cited page (you must use proper MLA format, mind you), and express your boring ideas with technical perfection, then you're in!

Who cares if you what you think about the literature is hooey? You expressed yourself with technical proficiency and that's all that matters.

Well guess what, not all of us give a rat's ass about proper MLA format. We don't see the big flippin' difference between 13 and 15 "sources." Some of us could really care less what some anti-social ex-hippie literature professor at Hoo-Haw University has to say on the matter. Nine times out of ten, I just want to learn about the literature. Not what other people say about the literature, but about the literature. And the author. And the author's peers. And the author's world.

But this semester has been all about the critics. What do the critics think? I can't say that I've learned much of anything valuable about Chaucer's work, but I can sure tell you what the critics think about him!

Fat lot of good that'll do me next week, after my final, when I'm staring down the outline of the next four-fifths of my first novel.

So I post this little essay on the school discussion board. It's supposed to be a farcical little piece that I really thought was killer funny. I'm talking milk-out-the-nose, go-to-bed-and-you're-still-getting-yourself-tickled funny. It's got feces-flinging chimpanzees in it, for crying out loud! I don't care who you are, that's funny right there.

Or not.

See, I know other people have probably read it because there's been some other posts on other topics. Little one-sentence completely superfluous acknowledgments. But their reaction: queue the chirping crickets. Nada. Okay, one guy posted a response, but he's the only other guy in the class. We have to stick together.

In some ways, I'd rather put myself out there, in the form of my writing, and get smacked down than be ignored. But that just seems to happen to me, for some reason. I wonder if people just aren't sure how to take me or my sense of humor (which I readily admit is fairly twisted).

Oh well, press on, I guess. I just hope I don't get ignored when my first novel comes out!

(Ed. note: this is a post I made on the school discussion board regarding our recent tackling of Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener")

Fasten your seat belts. [knuckle cracking] The only thing I ask is that you still respect me in the morning.

I think poor, mistweeted Bartleby (who is just misunderstood and needs a hug) is important not because there are similarities between Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” and the atheistic philosophy of a prominent, though dead, German philosopher (a perpetual fascination with whom continues to elude my understanding) or, for that matter, that of a long-dead Austrian coke-addict. If Marx and Freud were on the North Pole, I would be. . .oh, I don’t know. . .floating in an anti-gravity penthouse somewhere above the red spot of Jupiter. So I won’t use either of those esteemed gentlemen’s yardsticks. While his antiestablishmentarianism (Scrabble score: 34) is an obvious and important aspect to his character (something that strongly appeals to my rebellious sensibilities), his role as an allegory for the under-appreciated masses of worker-bee seems to be the clincher for what draws people to his character.

In any analysis, you have to make some assumptions:

1) Bartleby “prefers” to work as a scrivener. There is nothing in the text to indicate that he takes the low-paying, somewhat-unskilled job of copyist because someone is threatening to remove any of several arguably necessary bodily appendages with a pair of safety scissors. (translation: no one made him do it on pain of becoming a eunuch)

2) Copyists are essential to the transaction of business in Bartleby’s world.

3) Owing to (2), the work of copyists is not arbitrary or superfluous and has real, measurable economic value and is in fact the production of a commodity (the copied document) and not an ethereal stand-in for otherwise unclassifiable labor.

4) Who’s Charles Babbage? (translation: computers, and thus electronic office equipment, don’t yet exist to make all of their lives soooo much better)

5) Owing to (4), trained chimpanzees would actually work better but they continually soil themselves and often throw it at each other.

Now, let’s dive in, shall we?

On the question: Is Bartleby oppressed?

Exhibit A: He is never once coerced into doing anything immoral or against his will. He “prefers not to,” so he doesn’t. The prosecution rests.

You’re resting already?

I’m tired. It’s after midnight for Christ’s sake! Oh, alright, fine.

Exhibit B: Can’t Bartleby be characterized as a whining, sniveling child?

Objection! Hearsay. Badgering the witness.

Your honor, I withdraw the question.

On the question: Is Bartleby alienated from his work in a way that demoralizes and dehumanizes him so much that he willingly prostitutes himself because he has no other choice?

Exhibit B (the real one): Owing to assumption (3) and exhibit “A” regarding the question of oppression, how can Bartleby be said to have been alienated? Wouldn’t that imply that an external force—either a third party or the very nature of the work itself—acts on Bartleby to enforce that alienation? But can’t that alienation instead be attributed to his own actions and “preferences” first, rather than immediately assigning culpability for said alienation to said third party? If he’s not alienated by his own choice, by what mechanism can the work he does do the alienating? Isn’t “work” just a euphemism for an outpouring of ourselves? No, gentle-men and women of the jury, Work, with a capital “W”, is not an entity or an active force. Work doesn’t alienate people, People alienate People.

Exhibit C: How many attempts are made at bringing Bartleby in from the steppes to eliminate his isolation and alienation?

Objection, your honor! Calls for hearsay. Also cunningly alludes to a German novel by the venerable Hermann Hesse, who doesn’t write until after the time period in which Bartleby lived. By the way, your honor, the defense believes there should be a law against changing the subject merely for the purposes of interjecting humor.

I agree, counsel. Objection sustained. The jury is instructed to disregard the prosecutor’s last question. Pull that again, counsellor, and I’ll find you in contempt. [points gavel at prosecutor]

Exhibit C II: …

Objection!

What now?

How can counsel introduce exhibit 102 when he just tried to introduce exhibit “C”?

Good question. Counselor?

Those weren’t roman numerals. I meant exhibit SEE-TWO, SEE-THE-SECOND, SEE-JUNIOR, not SEE-EYE-EYE.

Very well. Carry on.

Exhibit C [prosecutor holds up two fingers to defense counsel] (2): Owing to assumptions (2) and (3) and exhibit “B” (the real one), can’t it be said that Bartleby blissfully reflects the hypocrisy of contending that proletariat Bartleby has no value other than that of his labor while maintaining that he must hold that labor in perpetuity or risk it being devalued within the false consciousness established by his capitalist employer and since God is either dead or stuck on the train to Poughkepsie and can’t testify actually has NO value?

Objection! I have no idea what the hell he just said!

Overruled. A sentence of 80 words and only one comma! Counsellor, you need a hobby.

I’ll take that as a compliment.

It wasn’t.

In closing, fair folk of the jury: I’m not a smart man, but I know what Love is.

Objection! That movie made me cry!

Overruled. Wait a minute, you can’t object during closing arguments!

As I was saying, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, Bartleby was what he chose to be. Like the lazy servant who buried the one talent entrusted to him in the ground, Bartleby squandered the opportunities he had to realize his potential value. A value the defense and prosecution both agree was waiting right there.