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Character analysis of the narrator in Bartleby the Scrivener
Effects of social isolation
Effects of social isolation
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Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville is a short story in which a lawyer, who runs a law firm on Wall Street in New York, narrates the story of Bartleby. Bartleby is one of the scriveners working for the lawyer. The lawyer finds Bartleby to be different and stand out against the other scriveners. The lawyer notes, “Meanwhile Bartleby sat in his hermitage, oblivious to everything but his own particular business there” (12). The lawyer respects Bartleby for being a hard-worker. However, at this moment he notices that Bartleby is lonely. Bartleby the Scrivener is a story of isolation and alienation. During his life, Bartleby is isolated from his coworkers and from society. Melville conveys that society is primarily responsible for the creation …show more content…
He employs multiple scriveners at his office to help him with his work. They are Turkey, Nippers, and Ginger Nut, but the one who stands out from them is Bartleby. In his first days of working at the firm, Bartleby impresses the lawyer with his job performance. However, the lawyer begins to notice that Bartleby’s behavior is off. Bartleby began refusing to review documents and eventually refusing to write copies of the documents. He only sits at his office space and stares out the window at the wall. The lawyer offers Bartleby time off and then attempts to fire him. He notices Bartleby strangely never leaves the office and asks him to leave. After Bartleby refuses to leave, the lawyer decides to move to another office and leave Bartleby. The people who moved into the new office begin to get furious as …show more content…
The quote, “Meanwhile Bartleby sat in his hermitage, oblivious to everything but his own particular business there” (12), depicts the separation between Bartleby and society. Though Bartleby is in an office space shared with others, he shuts them out and isolates himself. He doesn’t desire to be associated with anything but his own work. There is only an office screen separating him from the remainder of the office, but he still finds a method to alienate himself. This displays his ability to form his own isolated world. These behaviors of Bartleby are the result of society. When Bartleby first came to the law firm he was quite normal. But once he was ordered to review the documents by the lawyer, Bartleby refused to do something that society believed to be usual tasks. Therefore, asking Bartleby to complete the basic tasks started his
Melville, Herman. "Bartleby the Scrivener." The Story and Its Writer. Ed. Ann Charters. Boston: St. Martin's, 1995: 513-539.
Bartleby, the Scrivener, a story of lawyer and scrivener, questions like: What is worth living for in the world? What does society value or shape, what it means to be successful or of worth in the world that is inhabited? This is done through the various implications of Bartleby’s actions and responses, as well as the lawyer’s, and the descriptions and imagery of the environment. Walls in the story represent the entrapment, a blockade of sorts to prevent focus from wandering elsewhere. Bartleby in the story shares an office with the lawyer/narrator but their line of sight is blocked by a wall set up to separate them and is placed in the corner of the room, against another wall and his desk is facing a window that again, faces a wall.
Bartleby joins the lawyer's office as a scrivener, after having worked for the Dead Letters Office. As explained by the lawyer, the scriveners were paid four cents a folio, and under the employment of the lawyer, the scriveners also had to run errands for the lawyer, as well as help in proof reading the copied documents. The employer did not compensate for these other tasks. Thus, it was obvious as to why "Bartleby was never on any account to be dispatched on the most trivial errand of any sort; and that even if entreated to take upon such a matter, it was generally understood that he would 'prefer not to'- in other words, that he would refuse point blank." (Melville 15). For one thing, Bartleby was not being paid for the errands, but for the writing he did. Also, this defiance is a means through which he was preserving his autonomy. Bartleby was making a decision as to what he was and was not going to do. Bartleby's employer notice...
In Melville’s, “Bartleby the Scrivener,” a lawyer’s idea of relationships is tested. As a bachelor, his disconnection with people is an obstacle he has to overcome. The relationships between his coworkers and himself are simple and detached until Bartleby is introduced. The lawyer is befuddled at the unique behavior that this character displays and cannot help but take particular interest in him. When Bartleby is asked to work, he simply says, “I would prefer not to,” and when he quits working, he begins to stare at the wall (1112). This wall may symbolize the wall that the lawyer has built up in an attempt to ward off relationships, or it may simple symbolize Wall Street. When the lawyer finds out that Bartleby is l...
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.
The lawyer, on the other hand, does view his demands as intrinsically valid. The lawyer represents society with all its requirements and demands. Society expects us to work for our living under the terms and conditions that it sets, but what if we choose not to? * The lawyer does not make much of Bartleby's choice of words, he does not recognize the real problem; namely, Bartleby is neither interested, nor subjected to the rules of society
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.
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.
He starts to disconnect himself by refusing to do work given to him by his boss, this comes from his desire to be complacent, which we find out when he says “I like to be stationary,” when talking to the lawyer (127). Bartleby continues to change throughout the story, as he goes from being an employee who won’t do his work, to never leaving the office and essentially making it his home. According to Todd Giles, “Bartleby's silence establishes distance,” meaning that he becomes so out of place that people stop expecting of him (Giles, 2007). What this causes is the need for Bartleby to be removed from the Wall Street Office. The lawyer tries in many different ways to do so, and even offers him more money than he is owed if he will quit. Bartleby refuses and continues to stay in the building, doing nothing, detached from the world around him. Eventually the lawyer changes offices due to Bartleby and leaves him there for the next buyer. Bartleby is forced out by the new owner, and in time it is told the police he is a vagrant and he is thrown into jail. Bartleby’s story ends
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...
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.
For decades scholars and writers have attempted to find the historical analogies and symbolic figures that created Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street”. The story describes the setting of a small “law-copyists or scriveners” office on Wall Street and the unexpected arrival of an unknown character named Bartleby (Melville...
He describes it without using figurative language or creativity; the description is bleak. This emphasizes Bartleby’s inhuman and machine like qualities. The office is plain, only made of up several walls. The only outside light that does come in is from a “small side-window” that “commanded at present no view at all.” The office is depressing and encourages Bartleby’s depressing character. The walls that are present lead to Bartleby’s isolation. The narrator essentially secludes Bartleby from society because he is trapped within the office walls almost all the time. The reader hardly sees him
The lawyer, also the narrator, hires Bartleby to work as a scrivener at his business that involves bonds, mortgages and titles. The lawyer thinks he has all of his scriveners behaviors “on lock”. Although Bartleby started as a hard working employee, he eventually and in a calm manner refuses to do any requested work by the lawyer by simply saying, “I would prefer not to”. The lawyer doesn’t fire Bartleby after he declines to work, instead he gives Bartleby another chance. The lawyer preference to remain calm shows that he chooses to stray from confrontation. Bartleby continuous refusal to work leads to him being fired, but he refuses to leave. The lawyer’s philosophy and careful balancing of his employees is compromised by Bartleby actions. The lawyer moves his entire practice to another building to only find Bartleby there. Bartleby is arrested and continues in his bizarre daze. The lawyer visits Bartleby to convince him to eat and get through to him, but it doesn’t work and Bartleby dies. The lawyer sensitivity and empathy towards Bartleby raises questions to the lawyers sincerity. Ultimately, my goal is to demonstrate what was the lawyer’s intent to help Bartleby?
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