Suppression and Subversion through Walls in 'Bartleby the Scrivener'

Suppression and Subversion through Walls in “Bartleby the Scrivener”

In “Bartleby the Scrivener” an elderly lawyer recounts the tenure of a scrivener, Bartleby, from his office. The progression of this employer/employee relationship depicts disengagement between opposing social classes and its consequences. The presence of the subtitle of “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street” has been given much consideration. The subtitle carries the baggage of the emerging capitalistic culture, but it also alludes to the confinement that walls enable. Melville strategically uses architecture in his short story, “Bartleby the Scrivener” to demonstrate the disengagement between social classes that capitalism produces. In the story, the narrator, representative of the upper class, controls the actual physical partition separating him and the scriveners, representative of the lower class. In the same way that he controls the sliding doors, the lawyer manipulates religion and economic factors to control the separation between him and Bartleby. Architecture is also a part of Bartleby’s characterization; he is always staring at a brick wall. Melville is acknowledging Bartleby’s inability to conquer the brick wall. Melville demonstrates in the relationship between Bartleby and the lawyer that the walls that each puts up are not without consequence, ultimately leading to the death of Bartleby. Whereas capitalistic culture constructs a sky-lit window of opportunity for the lawyer, Bartleby is bound to a vision of a brick wall. Melville also uses architecture to demonstrate the ways in which each character engages and disengages with the other. Ultimately, the architecture of the social classes that a capitalistic culture produces results ...

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...r hand, Bartleby is unable to conquer the confines of the lawyer, but he does find a way to manipulate them in order to subvert the authority of the lawyer. The walls that the lawyer and the scrivener use disguise the bonds of common humanity that Melville is interested in uncovering. Because the lawyer ignored the fraternal bond between them, he refused to recognize Bartleby as an individual, ultimately causing Bartleby’s erasure, through starvation.

Works Cited

Barnett, Louise K. “Bartleby as Alienated Worker.” Studies in Short Fiction 6.4 (1974): 379-385. Print.

Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1954. Print.

Melville, Herman. “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” Electronic Classics Series. Penn State U, 2002. 1-45. 18 Nov. 2010.

Wilson, James C. “ ‘Bartleby’: The Walls of Wall Street.” Arizona Quarterly 37.4 (1981): 335-346. Print.