A Comparative Analysis of the Representation of Self in Emerson’s Self-Reliance and Melville’s ‘Bartleby, The Scrivener’

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Moreover, the concept of solipsism emphasises that language is a product of the self, hence, René Descartes’ principle of, ‘I think, therefore I am’. This can be further explained by the dichotomy between "reality" and "appearance"; that which I think is that which is. My senses that is outside of me provide me with the data which I then interpret and understand. The only thing that is certain (reality) is that "I" am me, and there is an uncertainty that anything outside of me actually do exist.

This concept is in line with Emerson’s Self-Reliance, in which he propagates a deep emphasis on the self, above all else: ‘No Law can be sacred to me but that of my nature’ (Emerson, 4); and which tends toward the concept of Antinomianism and Antebellum individualist culture. ‘The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism’ (10). Emerson’s claim to his self being bound to his own laws can also ...

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and sees the world as a contraction from the self.

Melville on the other hand, departs from the notion of solipsism. His interpretation of the nameless narrator, the elderly lawyer, in ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener’, tends to be in line with Kant’s proposition for practical reasoning, which concerns ethical issues of right or wrong. According to Kant, the subject, the human being, does not have a direct access to its own mind, and therefore to Kant, the existence of both external objects (appearance)and inner sense (the I), are presented as appearances to the subject. In other words, human beings are capable of viewing only the appearance and not things as they are in themselves. ...

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