Herman Melville's Bartleby, The Scrivener

Anti-Capitalist Hero

Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener” introduces many characters who is employed by a lawyer who convey very different personalities; Ginger Nut, Turkey , Nippers and the most strange of them all Bartleby Bartleby is a scrivener, whose occupation is to copy documents, just as a copying machine would do in modern day time. Bartleby a man of not so many words, starts his occupation working very hard and productively, yet in time bartleby starts to deny his work all together by saying “I would prefer not to.” (Melville, 23) . This quote demonstrates when Bartleby says ``prefer`` instead of ``will not`` that Bartleby has a choice in the matter. In order to see how the short story “Bartleby, the Scrivener” makes references to modern day capitalism and to determine whether Bartleby was a hero or not for modern day anti capitalist activist we must evaluate and analyze the main characters and some of the underlying themes of the story.

This short story demonstrates that the labourers are viewed as no more than a machine by their employer. A machine that can be replaced when needed or thrown away when viewed as no longer useful, just like it had happened in the case of Bartleby when he refused to work. After, examining and analyzing these aspects and elements of the dehumanization of the working class in Herman Melville’s short story. These underlying themes could be the reason and the motivation behind why so many activists connected and related so firmly with a story that was published more than 150 years earlier . I can now after taking a deeper look Bartleby see that he was a hero and icon for the modern day capitalist movement because he declined to be a used as a chess piece in his employers game of inequality. In the end, demonstrating to people the inequality in our capitalist