Althusser through Bartleby, Bartleby through Althusser

Following our analysis today, you can discuss the following:

1. Drawing on Louis Althussers essay, analyze the function of the state apparatus. What is
an apparatus, according to Althusser? How does it transform the individual into subject?
2. Analyze the office as a state apparatus in Melvilles Bartleby, the Scrivener. How does
Melvilles text reveal the real conditions of labor in the lawyers chambers? What is the
nature of the scriveners work and what do their idiosyncrasies represent?
3. How does Bartleby react to the nature of his work? What is the meaning of his prefer
not to? What is the symbolic significance of prefer within the context of the office as
an ideological state apparatus?
4. What does the lawyer refuse to see about the way his office operates, despite his
meticulous description of the premises, in other words, the material conditions of the
work his scriveners are asked to reproduce?

Research Tasks

5. What are the differences between the ISA and the RSA? Is the office an ISA or a RSA?
6. Find information about the Tombs in Manhattan in the 19th century and about the
lawyers work as a Master in Chancery.
7. Read Barbara Foleys essay and summarize the key points that reveal the historical and
political setting of Melvilles times. How does it help you understand Bartlebys refusal to
leave the premises (and his answers that he is engaged and occupied when he
refuses to let the lawyer into his office)? Relate this to the lawyers lucrative business as
a Master in Chancery and his references to John Jacob Astor.
8. Study Lewis Millers essay, Bartleby and the Dead Letter. Summarize the thesis of his
essay. How does it help you understand the relationship between the lawyer and
Bartleby? What case does he make about the dead letter?

After the holiday break, we will finish our reading of Althussers essay by pursuing the
following questions (in the second part of our session on April 26th, you will be asked to
write the first draft of your essay; you can use your notes, handouts, and Althusser and
Melvilles texts).

1. Explain Althussers analysis of interpellation. How is this manifested in the story? Who
are the Subject and subject? What process of hailing can you identify by which the
scriveners consent to their working and living conditions?
2. Does Bartleby resist his interpellation in the office? Is his resistance effective?
3. What kind of ideology does the lawyer represent? Study the notes on Bartleby. Explain
the terms American Adam and American exceptionalism. What kind of books does he
choose to read to find consolation and what do they represent?
4. Is the lawyer threatened or challenged by Bartleby? If yes, in which ways and why. If no,
then why does he try to understand him? Why does he try to help him when he is
imprisoned? If it is philanthropy, why does he abandon him to begin with?
5. Why is the lawyer interested in understanding him, in completing his biography?
6. What does Althusser argue that ideology has no history?
7. Explain his two theses. Use the story to demonstrate the material conditions of ideology
(second thesis). Explain the first thesis by drawing on the lawyers effort to represent
Bartleby through his ideology to sustain his understanding of humanity, the world, his
real conditions of existence. Does he succeed or fail?
8. Discuss the last line of the story: Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity How does Bartleby
contradict the lawyers, and maybe our, vision of humanity and the human? How does
this figure threaten the way ideology can blind one to the real conditions of [ones]
existence?