Bartleby The Scrivener Summary

It is evident that throughout the short story of “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” the narrator feels strong pity for Bartleby and is concerned about the hopelessness of the scrivener’s soul. However, by utilizing formal diction with a various tones, as well as a changing point of view, the narrator goes through a cycle of varying attitudes towards Bartleby: from perplexity to amazement, from pity to fear, and from hopelessness to understanding. All the while the narrator searches to find a spark of life in his passive resistant employee’s soul, until coming to the conclusion that it may have been a lost cause all along.

Initially, the narrator is quite perplexed by Bartleby’s strange resistance to such simple tasks but this perplexity transitions

Similarly, this is apparent when the narrator wields a formal diction to describe his peculiar encounter with Bartleby after discovering him in his office. However, there is a sense of reluctance and caution as he describes “the utterly surmised appearance of Bartleby, tenanting my law-chambers of a Sunday morning, with his cadaverously gentlemanly nonchalance, yet withal firm and self-possessed, had such a strange effect upon me, that incontinently I slunk away from my own door, and did as desired.” (541-542) This is the first evidence of his transition to fearful attitude toward Bartleby. Yet, the pity returns when he proclaims “the bond of a common humanity now drew me irresistibly to gloom. A fraternal melancholy! For both I and Bartleby were sons of Adam.” (542) It is important to note that the narrator has a sympathetic tone in these lines. The exclamation in the middle of the segment emphasizes how he feels about this injustice that his scrivener must endure. These feelings of pity dissipate completely, however, after Bartleby gently refuses to leave the narrator’s office. The fear develops as the narrator shares the following point of view: “My first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew to my imagination, did that same melancholy

However, this story of passive opposition concludes with a revealed piece of Bartleby’s history and the narrator finally comprehends the scrivener’s mind. The feelings of hopelessness are displayed when the narrator comes to the following conclusion: “What I saw that morning persuaded me that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder… it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach.” (544) In just these two lines, the narrator cleverly uses complex phrasing to explicate the kind of mental pain Bartleby experiences. By doing so, he also comes to the realization that there is simply nothing he can do to aid Bartleby’s strife. Consequently, this transitions into a fuller understanding. Shortly after learning about Bartleby’s past as a dead letter disposer, the narrator, with an entirely new point of view, concludes, “Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters, and assorting them for flames?” (557) As he finally comprehends the baffling mind of Bartleby, he claims in an exasperated tone, “Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!” (557) Unfortunately, this cognizance of his former employee is too late as Bartleby is dead. Throughout the course of “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” the narrator undergoes a plethora of fluctuating attitudes toward Bartleby.