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Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener
“Bartleby the Scrivener” is in what point of view
Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener
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Bartleby the Scrivener: Why the Narrator Is the Problem Scholars often describe Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” as a tale of passive aggressive resistance, or a tale of mental illness. Readers often look to discover Bartleby’s motivations, much as the narrator does in the story; however, the problem here lies not with Bartleby. Bartleby exists on his own terms, not to defy conventions, but simply because he is who he is. The narrator, and therefore the reader, finds a need to explain “why” rather than accept Bartleby’s actions at face value. Bartleby is not mentally ill, nor does he try to be a nonconformist; Bartleby just seeks to exist. Melville shows this through Bartleby’s interactions with the narrator, both on his own terms and the narrator’s, through Bartleby’s limited interactions with others, and …show more content…
The narrator constantly attempts to explain Bartleby’s behavior through various medical explanations, thinking that his eyes hurt or he has indigestion. He constantly makes demands on Bartleby and only once comes to Bartleby on Bartleby’s terms, yet even then cannot understand the significance of this breakthrough. Both characters are doomed from the start because the narrator assumes something is wrong with Bartleby. It never seems to occur to him to try to understand Bartleby as Bartleby understands himself. Though Bartleby says, “I would prefer not to,” it is not his choices that drive him out. Because society cannot include people who do not fit this “social norm,” they are pushed to the outside of society. The story’s ending shows that when people do not fit in, they end up on the outside, alone, and eventually the die unnoticed. Yet the real tragedy is that the narrator goes on, even after Bartleby passes away, trying to understand
Melville, Herman. "Bartleby the Scrivener." The Story and Its Writer. Ed. Ann Charters. Boston: St. Martin's, 1995: 513-539.
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,”
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
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.
Melville, Herman. “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature. 8th ed. Nina Baym and Robert S. Levine. Vol. B. New York: Norton, 2012. 1483-1509. Print.
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,
The narrator is a well-established man of age and has no family or significant other, he is alone. Even in his business he chooses to separate himself from his employees by dividing the workspace into two areas. After employing Bartleby, the narrator sets him up on his side of the office but erects a green folding screen in order to, again, divide his work area from Bartleby’s and states, “And thus, in a manner, privacy and society were conjoined.” The narrator does this not only to satisfy his necessity for aloneness but to detach himself from his employees, which he perceives to be lower class. To the narrator’s surprise, Bartleby enjoys his isolation behind the green screen, so much so, that the narrator finds difficulty when calling on Bartleby, “Like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the third summons he appeared at the entrance of his
The only way to formulate any conclusion or understanding of Bartleby is to guess or assume his identity, and recalling to an earlier quote by Nudelman, “staging multiple readings of “Bartleby” might seem ill advised” (Nudelman,
At first Bartleby seems like a very productive worker, but through time loses complete interest in performing the duties of his job. In 1853 when Herman Melville writes the short story of “Bartleby, The Scrivener” there is a simmering undertone of resentment growing against the capitalistic society. By looking at the depression and apathetic nature Melville applies to his protagonist Bartleby’s feelings towards his career as a law clerk along with his relationship to food. It can be seen how Melville uses these issues to exemplify passive resistance against industrialized, capitalistic
He fails to show emotion and happy characteristics. After a while, Bartleby becomes increasingly less productive as his employment continues. Eventually, the narrator will ask him to do something and he will respond with a phrase like “I would prefer not to”. Eventually, he stops working all together when and says, “I have given up copying” (Melville 341). A very strange act by Bartleby is when he refuses to leave the office and instead spends every hour of the day there.
1. Herman Melville was a brilliant author during the Renaissance period that wrote and published many stories that were perceived to be controversial during those days but in retrospect are known to be popular in today’s times. One story that was part of Melville literature work is “Bartleby the Scrivener”, which a story told exclusively by a narrator who was a big part of the story including Bartleby. One of the most important lines in the story is when the narrator describes a scene when Bartleby first exposed himself for who he was. The narrator says, “In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly stating what it was I wanted him to do—namely, to examine a small paper with me.
He is useful to me” (11). At this point of the story, the lawyer feels sympathy toward Bartleby. The narrator tries to buy himself a good conscience by offering him to stay at his house and keep him at the job, “...if I turn him away he will fall in with some less indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated here I can cheaply purchase a delicious self-approval. To befriend Bartleby will cost me little or nothing, while I lay up in my soul what will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my conscience"(11). The narrator believes, that by keeping the scrivener, it will bring him a meaning in life and will be grateful to the lawyer.
His efforts though are fruitless because he was not able to get to Bartleby and never truly understood him, even in prison as the man eventually dies of starvation. Although after his death the lawyer does learn of Bartleby’s previous and listless job at a ‘Dead Letter Office’ which made the lawyer sympathize for him and wonder if that job is what made Bartleby so distant. Bartleby was a loner who distanced himself from everyone, even in death, he was aloof and never interacted with anyone which is not considered normal human behavior because humans are supposed to be social. This story went a little deeper and gave the idea of humanity as a whole being apathetic towards each other, because only the lawyer showed any sort of humane concern for Bartleby while the others cared less. Bartleby himself displayed apathetic behavior as he showed little to no care for how his behavior affected others or even himself. Outside in the world, many people who are stressed out and constantly working tend to only focus on themselves and have little to no care for other people most of the time. It’s another negative view on humanity, but at the same time it’s not that wrong, as society made by humans also makes others so busy and stuck in tedious schedules that they gradually become more jaded and some even become distant and
The story of Bartleby was a very interesting story open for many different interpretations. Melville does and excellent job building suspension towards different thoughts as to what caused Bartleby to become an emotionless incapable worker. Here is evidence throughout the story to reflect the kindheartedness of the narrator. After reading this work the last quote “Ah Bartleby, Ah humanity” stood out as a cry of sadness for failing to understand and further assist Bartleby. After the numerous attempts He describes himself an elder lawyer that has his own office with a total of four employees including Bartleby. The narrator takes the time to learn the qualities of each individual not just on a performance basis however, personally as well.