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Herman Melville - “Bartleby the Scrivener”
Herman Melville“Bartleby the Scrivener”
Herman Melville - “Bartleby the Scrivener”
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Suppression and Subversion through Walls in “Bartleby the Scrivener” In “Bartleby the Scrivener” an elderly lawyer recounts the tenure of a scrivener, Bartleby, from his office. The progression of this employer/employee relationship depicts disengagement between opposing social classes and its consequences. The presence of the subtitle of “Bartleby the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street” has been given much consideration. The subtitle carries the baggage of the emerging capitalistic culture, but it also alludes to the confinement that walls enable. Melville strategically uses architecture in his short story, “Bartleby the Scrivener” to demonstrate the disengagement between social classes that capitalism produces. In the story, the narrator, representative of the upper class, controls the actual physical partition separating him and the scriveners, representative of the lower class. In the same way that he controls the sliding doors, the lawyer manipulates religion and economic factors to control the separation between him and Bartleby. Architecture is also a part of Bartleby’s characterization; he is always staring at a brick wall. Melville is acknowledging Bartleby’s inability to conquer the brick wall. Melville demonstrates in the relationship between Bartleby and the lawyer that the walls that each puts up are not without consequence, ultimately leading to the death of Bartleby. Whereas capitalistic culture constructs a sky-lit window of opportunity for the lawyer, Bartleby is bound to a vision of a brick wall. Melville also uses architecture to demonstrate the ways in which each character engages and disengages with the other. Ultimately, the architecture of the social classes that a capitalistic culture produces results ... ... middle of paper ... ...r hand, Bartleby is unable to conquer the confines of the lawyer, but he does find a way to manipulate them in order to subvert the authority of the lawyer. The walls that the lawyer and the scrivener use disguise the bonds of common humanity that Melville is interested in uncovering. Because the lawyer ignored the fraternal bond between them, he refused to recognize Bartleby as an individual, ultimately causing Bartleby’s erasure, through starvation. Works Cited Barnett, Louise K. “Bartleby as Alienated Worker.” Studies in Short Fiction 6.4 (1974): 379-385. Print. Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1954. Print. Melville, Herman. “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” Electronic Classics Series. Penn State U, 2002. 1-45. 18 Nov. 2010. Wilson, James C. “ ‘Bartleby’: The Walls of Wall Street.” Arizona Quarterly 37.4 (1981): 335-346. Print.
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...
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,”
The author of the story presents the questions of what is valuable in society and how those that resist these values are dealt with and answers them through Bartleby's actions from his life to his death. Society values things such as money and working to make money where human things such as sentimentalities and emotions are not worth holding onto and when one refuses to work he is left with choices of imprisonment in a cell or imprisonment in a job where Bartleby instead chose to die, to be free of such a world that does not value freedoms and humanity.
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.
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.
This can be seen in how the narrator and other lawyers never want to do anything that harms themselves or their reputation. Melville shows us this side of the lawyers when they come to the narrator to help rid themselves of Bartleby and they state, “Every body is concerned; clients are leaving the offices; some fears are entertained of a mob; something you must do, and that without delay.” Then, the narrator decides to help not out of the goodness of his heart but because he is “fearful then of being exposed to the papers.” All the lawyers have no true concerns of what happens to Bartleby as long as he is out of their way. This helps to give the reader some insight into how the law is there to attempt to keep people formed to the society intended where everyone has there place to help society run smoothly and if someone doesn’t conform to this society, they are told that they are breaking the law and must be imprisoned. Therefore, the lawyers decide to call the police on Bartleby and have him thrown in jail for nothing other than his
Lyons, Oliver, and Bill Bonnie. "An Interview with Tobias Wolff." Contemporary Literature. 31.1 (1990): 1-16. Web. 12 Feb. 2012.
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.
When reading Nathaniel Hawthorne’s “Young Goodman Brown” or Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener,” the audience might notice how they are stories of men who become detached from the society after a notable change in how they act towards the world. However, while Bartleby’s disconnection stems from work-related changes, Young Goodman Brown’s disconnection is caused by a “spiritual” experience. I want to focus on how many things these characters have in common, to show what may have caused their change of view in the societies around them.
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.
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.
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 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.
Abrams, M.H., The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Sixth Edition, Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton & Co. Inc., 1993