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Bartleby And Civil Disobedience - College Essays

Bartleby And Civil Disobedience

The extremely simplified definition of civil disobedience given by Webster’s Dictionary is “nonviolent opposition to a law through refusal to comply with it, on grounds of conscience.”
Thoreau in “Civil Disobedience” and Martin Luther King in “Letter from Birmingham Jail” both argue that laws thought of as unjust in one’s mind should not be adhered to. In Herman Melville’s “Bartleby,” a man named Bartleby is thought of by many to be practicing civil disobedience. His actions are nonviolent, and he refuses to comply with anything his boss says. But his behavior has nothing to do with morals. Bartleby is merely a lonely ...

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such as, “when those papers are all copied, I will compare them with you”, or, “just step around the Post Office, won’t you? And see if there is anything for me” (Melville 116). The boss, who is also the narrator, never requests Bartleby to perform any difficult chores. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s interpretation of an unjust law is, “a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself” (Jacobus 159). The injustice described here by King also does not match the characterization of Bartleby’s boss. Bartleby needs no civil disobedience since nothing could be considered unjust in the boss’s management.
Even if an unjust act were placed against Bartleby, he would not have had any cares about the injustice. He was a man who needed a place to live and chose to be a law-copyist. He has no desire to do any work and no desire to interact with other humans. ...

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PAPER DETAILS

Added: 6/2/2004 10:20:10 PM
Category: Miscellaneous
Type: Premium Paper
Words: 562
Pages: 3

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