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The Misinterpellated Subject
Copyright:
This content is made freely available by the publisher. It may not be redistributed or altered. All rights reserved.
Duke University Press
ISBN electronic:
978-0-8223-7343-8
Publication date:
2017
Book Chapter
“Come, Come!”: Bartleby and Lily Briscoe as Nietzschean Subjects
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Published:February 2017
In this chapter, I look at two texts that epitomize the Nietzschean subject—and hence misinterpellated subects-- that I examine in chapter 4. In the chapter I argue that Bartleby, far from being passive and a nonagent, is actually the only true agent in the story. Everyone else is following a script, doing what they are told (or interpellated) to do. Bartleby’s famous line “I would prefer not to” is not a form of giving up on life but rather an expression of amor fati, an indication that he follows only his own preferences rather than the projections that normally...
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