Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
A comparison between the writing style of Hawthorne and Melville
Introduction to bartleby the scrivener essay
Bartleby the scrivener short summary
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
"Bartleby the Scrivener” "Bartleby the Scrivener” is a story writer by Herman Melville published in1853 that now is one of the most famous American short stories.The story is about Bartleby who was hired by a Wall Street lawyer to copy legal documents by hand. Bartleby was a well motivated employee who also was capable to process a large volume of work with high quality when he start working at the lawyer office. But suddenly he start refusing to do any task by simple answer to any request with the simple phrase “I could prefer not to”. What produce in Bartley this remarkable change in his attitude ? What is the true about Bartleby mental health? Trough the reading we could discover the development of the character of Bartleby, analyzing …show more content…
One day the lawyer arrived to the office at unexpected time and discover that Bartleby was living at the office. He asked Bartleby to open the door and Bartleby refused repeating the same sentence “I could prefer not to”. Soon the tenants notice that Bartleby was seating in the stairs all day and he also sleeps at the doorway. The tenants ask the lawyer to offer a solution for that situation. They thought that the lawyer was responsible for Bartleby behavior because he permitted that Bartleby not take responsibility for his actions.As a result the Lawyer in order to ovoid conflict with his business associates move his office out and offer a Bartleby the opportunity to move with him. But Bartleby refused to move with him. Later the lawyer comeback and found out that Bartleby has been arrested and send it to the Tombs. The lawyer visited him at the jail, and he noticed that Bartleby continue with the same posture. When the lawyer saw him at the jail he was in a corner on silence, just looking to the wall. At that moment Bartleby refused consuming any food too. The Lawyer was preoccupied by Bartleby situation and give money to Turkey to feed him. A few days later when the lawyer return to visited Bartleby he found out that he was dead by
People one can never really tell how person is feeling or what their situation is behind closed doors or behind the façade of the life they lead. Two masterly crafted literary works present readers with characters that have two similar but very different stories that end in the same result. In Herman Melville’s story “Bartleby the Scrivener” readers are presented with Bartleby, an interesting and minimally deep character. In comparison to Gail Godwin’s work, “A Sorrowful Woman” we are presented with a nameless woman with a similar physiological state as Bartleby whom expresses her feelings of dissatisfaction of her life. Here, a deeper examination of these characters their situations and their ultimate fate will be pursued and delved into for a deeper understanding of the choice death for these characters.
After reading about these men first, as a reader, I come to realize more of what type of person Bartleby is. He does not have many characteristics as his fellow companions. He is quiet and his famous “I would prefer not to” decisions make one question is way of thinking. In many ways, Bartleby does what
Bartleby demonstrates behaviours indicative of depression, the symptoms he has in accordance with the DSM-IV are a loss of interest in activities accompanied by a change in appetite, sleep, and feelings of guilt (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition, 320). Very shortly after Bartleby begins his work as a Scrivener he is described by the narrator as having done “nothing but stand at his window in his dead-wall revery”. (Melville, 126) In contrast, Bartleby had previously been described as a very hard worker and this process of doing increasingly less shows how his a diminishing sense of interest both in his work but also of the perception others have of him. It is also noted that included in this lack of interest is a social withdrawal (DSM—IV, 321) which corresponds well to Bartleby in that his workspace becomes known as his “hermitage”. During small talk which included Bartleby he says that he “would prefer to be left alone”. (Melville, 120) Bartleby only emerges from his hermitage when called upon and quickly returns when faced with confrontation.
In Herman Melville's short story, Bartleby, the Scrivener, the narrator's attitude towards Bartleby is constantly changing, the narrator's attitude is conveyed through the author's use of literary elements such as; diction-descriptive and comical, point of view-first person, and tone-confusion and sadness.
Language is the key, crucial part of this short story. Bartleby, the epitome of mystery and frustration in the office, constantly uses the term ‘I prefer not to’, to exhibit his unwillingness to comply with his boss's requests to proofread his rough draft. “The very language that Bartleby uses as he puts aside the tasks demanded of him shows the extent of to which he does not participate in the conventions of the Wall Street World” (Matturi, 7).
In the short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” which was written by Herman Melville, the character named Bartleby is a very odd, yet interesting individual. In the story, Bartleby is introduced when he responds to a job opening at the narrator’s office. Although there is no background information given about him, it becomes very apparent that he will be the antagonist in this story. Unlike the usual image put on the antagonist, Bartleby causes conflict with a very quiet and calm temperament. This character’s attitude, along with the fact that he is a flat and static character, makes him a very unique antagonist, and this fact is shown through the way other characters approach and deal with his conflict.
McCall focuses his argument within the way in which Melville has written Bartleby, The Scrivener, he goes into detail about the comical aspects within the story and uses Melville’s description of Bartleby’s saying “I prefer not to,’ he respectfully and slowly said, and mildly disappeared.” (272). McCall suggests that the adverbs Melville uses, “respectfully” , “slowly” and “mildly” , “create[s] a leisurely little excursion into the uncanny” (279). I agree that the lawyer must have had some wit and good intentions in making the claim about Bartleby up to a point, I cannot accept this fully because many people still believe that the lawyer is unreliable. Most critics within the majority, as McCall reinstates, “believe, “the lawyer is “self-satisfied”, “pompous”…”a smug fool” who is ‘terribly unkind to a very sick man’ “(2660. I disagree with the idea that the lawyer was unkind and Bartleby was sick. The lawyer was fascinated by Bartleby’s responses to the job, and Bartleby, I feel knew exactly what he was doing in stating his responses. McCall acknowledges that “these cure two central problems in the story: the nature of Bartleby’s illness and the lawyer’s capacity to understand it,”
Bartleby is a man who is in charge of his own life by having a free will and living a life of preference. His infamous line "I prefer not to" appears in the story numerous times. His choice of preference leads to the downfall of his life. Bartleby made several crucial mistakes that lead to his downfall. His first mistake was when the attorney asked him to make copies and run errands for him and Bartleby preferred not to do so. "At this early stage of his attempt to act by his preferences, Bartleby has done nothing more serious than break the ground rules of the attorney's office by avoiding duties the attorney is accustomed to having his scriveners perform" (Patrick 45). An employee is also supposed to do tasks in the job description and when these tasks are not accomplished or done correctly, not once but several times, it usually leads to termination. Bartleby is a rare case because he does not get fired. This in turn results in his second mistake. Since he was able to get away with not doing anything, Bartleby opted to take the next step and quit his job or in his own words, "give up copying" (Melville 2345). Quitting caused him to have more troubles than he had before. Bartleby then...
Melville intends something less black and white with more gray shading. Melville uses dramatic irony and grim humor in “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. This is to show the reader how the Lawyer assumes he is a safe, successful and powerful man with extensive control in his polite society until he hires a man named Bartleby. This relationship is slowly revealed to be quite a conundrum for the Lawyer and the reader. Melville shows how the Lawyer never had any power or control over Bartleby but quite the opposite; Bartleby held all the power and control in this relationship. I will explore the important of the power struggle and the fight to maintain control between the Lawyer and Bartleby.
In Herman Melville’s work “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street”, the idea of a capitalist agenda is intentionally reinforced. This short work tells the story of a lawyer on Wall-Street and those of his employees, but he is particularly fascinated by Bartleby. Bartleby at first a hard worker who divulged tirelessly in his job as a law-copyist begins to “ prefer not” to do what is asked of him. This leads to the lawyer to grow increasingly curious about Bartleby. The idea of capitalist values in “Bartleby the Scrivener” are supported through the way the narrator, the lawyer, presents his employees to the reader, describes meeting Bartleby and Bartleby’s
Bartleby- The Scrivener In Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”, the author uses several themes to convey his ideas. The three most important themes are alienation, man’s desire to have a free conscience, and man’s desire to avoid conflict. Melville uses the actions of an eccentric scrivener named Bartleby, and the responses of his cohorts, to show these underlying themes to the reader. The first theme, alienation, is displayed best by Bartleby’s actions. He has a divider put up so that the other scriveners cannot see him, while all of them have desks out in the open so they are full view of each other, as well as the narrator. This caused discourse with all of the others in the office. This is proven when Turkey exclaims, “ I think I’ll just step behind his screen and black his eyes for him.”(p.2411) The other scriveners also felt alienated by the actions of the narrator. His lack of resolve when dealing with Bartleby angered them because they knew that if they would have taken the same actions, they would have been dismissed much more rapidly. The narrator admits to this when he said, “ With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence.” (2409) The next theme is man’s desire to avoid conflict. The narrator avoids conflict on several occasions. The first time Bartleby refused to proofread a paper, the narrator simply had someone else do it instead of confronting him and re...
The infamous ending statement in Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener,” “Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!” (Melville 34), signifies not only the tragic demise of the character of Bartleby, but the dismal ruin of mankind as well. This enigmatic statement can be applied to both “Bartleby the Scrivener” and Melville’s other short story, “Benito Cereno.” Both stories are narrated by unreliable characters, leaving further questions on whether or not the Lawyer was genuinely trying to help Bartleby when he showed signs of depression or if the one-sided story of Captain Delano truly portrayed the slaves and their motives for taking over Cereno’s San Dominick. In each of Melville’s short stories, there is an obvious grayness about each tale, the plots of both stories start out slow and unsuspicious, but are then revealed through a dynamic change in events, and each novella has ultimate realities that are hidden through appearances. Together, “Bartleby the Scrivener” and “Benito Cereno” are stories that possess a deep meaning within them which is intended to make the reader question the definition of human nature.
The narrator begins the short story Bartleby the Scrivener by “waiving the biographies of all other scriveners for a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener of the strangest I ever saw or heard of” (pg). Bartleby appears at first as a “pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn,” (pg) character who is hired by the narrator because of his sedate nature, which he hoped would balance the personalities of his other employees. Bartleby is first isolated from the other characters through the actions of his boss, the lawyer, who “isolated Bartleby from my sight, though not removed from my voice,” (pg) by placing a folding screen around his desk and, “in a manner,
Who is the lawyer you may ask? What kind of person is the lawyer throughout the story? The lawyer doesn’t mention anything about himself except the fact of his job and age. He doesn’t even give his name nor the name of anyone in the story. Through the words that he speaks, the lawyer is a person who like to have structure. The enactment of dealing with people on a personal base is to much of a confrontation for lawyer. Through the ordeal of his interaction with each of his scriveners we learn that the lawyer plays it safe.
In Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”, a story of “the strangest” law-copyist the narrator, a lawyer, has ever employed is told. The narrator experiences conflict with Bartleby when he “prefers not to” examine some law papers. Once Bartleby “prefers not to” once, he continues to repeat the statement on all request asked of him. This statement sends Bartleby into a state of tranquility, staying isolated in the cubical and refusing all assistance by any means. This state results in him going to jail, and eventually dying. This passive resistance Bartleby exhibits traps him physically and psychologically by surrounding him with “walls” the narrator symbolically describes numerous times. The idea of transcendentalism arises from Bartleby’s civil disobedience. The notion of transcendentalism is expressed by Bartleby when he refuses to work and spreads the ideals of transcendentalism, yet he does not succeed in breaking free of society’s chains, instead he dies trying. In Melville’s story the use of repetition, symbolism, and imagery prove Bartley is in fact a transcendentalist, but a failing one at that.