bartleby and sisyphus - two kinds of pity.
bartleby and sisyphus, two radically opposed literary characters, united only in the causes for their struggles and the pity they evoke. the former denies labor with the simple sentence: "i would prefer not to." confronted with the exogenous forces defining his own life, he crawls back into his shell, denying all activity for the sake of denial - apparently an absurd hero avant la lettre. the latter, in camus' interpretation, embodies the absurd condition that defines conscious man; all is in vain, but we are forced to create meaning - and so we make rocks to push up mountains.
according to camus, the absurd condition is defined by a constant striving for understanding/sinngebung, co-existent with the realisation that the world is beyond that. the believer is not absurd, for he leaps over the second element of the definition. bartleby is (despite initial appearances) not absurd in the camussian sense, for he forsakes the first element, and lives life without meaning (alles menschliches ist ihm fremd). camus investigated whether the realisation of the vanity of the world necessarily led to suicide, and concluded this need not be the case - but for our anti-human bartleby, it is.
the pity we feel for bartleby originates in his loneliness, and perhaps in a shared inclination to resist the exogenous practices enforced on us, the weight of tradition - in short: life. confronted with the incomprehensibility of life, he retreats, isolates himself, and succumbs to the second law of thermodynamics. (hardt & negri are too optimistic: although bartleby may be lovable, he is not revolutionary, but suicidal. if he resists capitalism, he does so only in the sense in which certain animals (and arguably: terrorists) exhibit self-destructive practices in captivity (as explained by baudrillard) - resisting authority through the only means left to them: suicide.)
the pity we feel for bartleby remains provisional. the pity we feel for sisyphus is of a fundamentally different nature: whereas bartleby is life-denying, sisyphus is life-affirming in his wretchedness - and pitiful because we recognize ourselves in him. with one we feel connected because we admire his denial. with the other because we know that denial isn't ours.
according to camus, the absurd condition is defined by a constant striving for understanding/sinngebung, co-existent with the realisation that the world is beyond that. the believer is not absurd, for he leaps over the second element of the definition. bartleby is (despite initial appearances) not absurd in the camussian sense, for he forsakes the first element, and lives life without meaning (alles menschliches ist ihm fremd). camus investigated whether the realisation of the vanity of the world necessarily led to suicide, and concluded this need not be the case - but for our anti-human bartleby, it is.
the pity we feel for bartleby originates in his loneliness, and perhaps in a shared inclination to resist the exogenous practices enforced on us, the weight of tradition - in short: life. confronted with the incomprehensibility of life, he retreats, isolates himself, and succumbs to the second law of thermodynamics. (hardt & negri are too optimistic: although bartleby may be lovable, he is not revolutionary, but suicidal. if he resists capitalism, he does so only in the sense in which certain animals (and arguably: terrorists) exhibit self-destructive practices in captivity (as explained by baudrillard) - resisting authority through the only means left to them: suicide.)
the pity we feel for bartleby remains provisional. the pity we feel for sisyphus is of a fundamentally different nature: whereas bartleby is life-denying, sisyphus is life-affirming in his wretchedness - and pitiful because we recognize ourselves in him. with one we feel connected because we admire his denial. with the other because we know that denial isn't ours.
posted by dennis at
7:44 AM
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