Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Works by Jacques Derrida Cited
- Series Editor's Preface
- Introduction: Watchwords
- 1 “Tape-Recorded Surprise”: Derrida Interviewed
- 2 “Bartleby,” or Decision: A Note on Allegory
- 3 Urgent Translation
- 4 Coming to the Beginning
- 5 To Follow
- 6 La Morsure
- 7 “One day someone …”
- 8 The Affect of America
- 9 From Now On
- 10 Stunned: Derrida on Film
- 11 Aller à la ligne
- 12 Composition Displacement
- 13 The Ear, Who?
- 14 To Do Justice to “Rousseau,” Irreducibly
- 15 The Deconstitution of Psychoanalysis
- 16 The Philosopher, As Such, and the Death Penalty
- Epitaph
- Index
2 - “Bartleby,” or Decision: A Note on Allegory
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 12 September 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgments
- Works by Jacques Derrida Cited
- Series Editor's Preface
- Introduction: Watchwords
- 1 “Tape-Recorded Surprise”: Derrida Interviewed
- 2 “Bartleby,” or Decision: A Note on Allegory
- 3 Urgent Translation
- 4 Coming to the Beginning
- 5 To Follow
- 6 La Morsure
- 7 “One day someone …”
- 8 The Affect of America
- 9 From Now On
- 10 Stunned: Derrida on Film
- 11 Aller à la ligne
- 12 Composition Displacement
- 13 The Ear, Who?
- 14 To Do Justice to “Rousseau,” Irreducibly
- 15 The Deconstitution of Psychoanalysis
- 16 The Philosopher, As Such, and the Death Penalty
- Epitaph
- Index
Summary
Let us approach Melville's incomparable short work and ask it to decide the question of decision. How is it, according to “Bartleby the Scrivener,” that a decision is possible-assuming that it is ever possible? What happens when someone decides or, as one says in French, se décide? Let us see.
At last I was made aware that all through the circle of my professional acquaintance, a whisper of wonder was running round, having reference to the strange creature I kept at my office. This worried me very much. And as the idea came upon me of his possibly turning out a long-lived man, and keep occupying my chambers, and denying my authority; and perplexing my visitors, and scandalizing my professional reputation; and casting a general gloom over the premises; keeping soul and body together to the last upon his savings (for doubtless he spent but half a dime a day), and in the end perhaps outlive me, and claim possession of my office by right of his perpetual occupancy: as all these dark anticipations crowded upon me more and more, and my friends continually intruded their relentless remarks upon the apparition in my room; a great change was wrought in me. I resolved to gather all my faculties together, and for ever rid me of this intolerable incubus.
In the retrospective narration, this passage recounts a well-calculated and weighed act of decision. The narrator calculates, then he decides, he resolves on a course of action. His calculation is rapid and approximate, but it is enough for him to estimate how long the other might live. It is thus on the basis of Bartleby’s ghost, of his possible and even probable survival beyond the calculator’s own lifetime that the “great change” of the decision begins work in him. To this calculation of probabilities is added the knowledge of a man of the law whose particular specialty is overseeing the goods of property owners and inheritance rights.
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- Information
- To FollowThe Wake of Jacques Derrida, pp. 33 - 42Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2010