Bartleby the Scrivener

Introduction

“Bartleby the Scrivener” is described by a affluent Wall Street lawyer who, in “the cool tranquillity of a snug retreat,” does “a snug business among rich men's bonds, and mortgages, and title-deeds.” Among his customers, the anonymous speaker is overconfident to state, was John Jacob Astor, the richest gentleman in the USA at the time of his demise. This paper discusses “Bartleby, the Scrivener” in relation to the theme of language.

Discussion

The assets of thematic potential in “Bartleby the Scrivener” has possibly made it the most studied of all US short stories. Most of of this analysis centers on the theme of language, and the title character, who is seen as a prototype of confused contemporary man, as the victim of an indifferent society, as a nonconformist — perhaps even a heroic one — who becomes isolated simply for daring to assert his preferences. Another interpretation, built around Bartleby's role as a writer of sorts, claims that Herman Melville's story is a parable of the isolation of the artist in a materialistic society that not only is indifferent to its writers but also is bent on their destruction. (Howard, 825-31)

Such views, while having varying degrees of validity, ignore the fact that “Bartleby the Scrivener” is dominated by the receptivity of its narrator and his search for the truth, a search that is ironic because he is helpless of any objective understanding of Bartleby and his seemingly perverse preferences. Not Bartleby's actions or passivity but the narrator's responses to his copyist are what is important.

Early in the story, the lawyer describes himself as “an eminently safe man,” one “who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.” He makes allowances for Turkey and Nippers because that is the easiest way to deal with them, but he is unable to understand why he cannot similarly control Bartleby.

When his initial efforts with Bartleby fail, he attempts to turn the predicament to his advantage. The emotional narrator tries to alter the scrivener from an intractable problem to an opportunity for compassion. However, this compassion, as is appropriate for a man of Wall Street who exults in John Jacob Astor's name. For him, the moral and the financial seem inseparable.

The linguistic archetype looks noticeable when compassion proves insufficient, the narrator resorts to philosophical explanations. Reading Jonathan Edwards's The Freedom of the Will (1754) and Joseph Priestley's The Doctrine of Philosophical Necessity Illustrated (1777) convinces him that Bartleby has been “billeted upon me for some mysterious purpose of an all-wise Providence, which it was not for a mere mortal like me to fathom.” This evasion of responsibility is not the answer, though, because people are talking about him. Because the good opinions of others are essential to his business and his self-esteem, the lawyer is finally forced to act.

Melville's language is satirizing the selfish society of his time but in a much larger sense than merely its indifference to writers. Melville is attacking ...