Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Close Examination and Analysis

Bartleby is a sad loner hired by an elderly lawyer (the narrator) to work at his business that entails bonds, mortgages and titles. Bartleby is hired to copy text. Bartleby eventually and in a quiet and gracious manner refuses to do any requested work for the elderly lawyer. Bartleby is finally fired but refuses to leave. Bartleby haunts the office premises and causes continued dismay in the narrator of this story. Bartleby isolates himself physically and emotionally throughout this story. Bartleby slowly gives in to an internal psychological apathy that leads him to die. Bartleby, the Scrivener" is a story about the physical and mental degeneration of a man, an alienation of an individual from his own humanity.

"Bartleby, the Scrivener" shows the reader the physical and mental deterioration of Bartleby through other people's eyes. Bartleby degenerates into offering passive resistance and causes the people around him to react in many different ways. It is in their words, actions or non-actions that we learn more about their principles and levels of compassion. This story makes a subtle point about conformity sometimes being basic for survival and avoidance of conflict being a natural reaction. The reader never knows who Bartleby really is; his spirit and motives remain a mystery. The narrator gives the reader words and actions in this story that show that Bartleby is psychologically unbalanced. "Bartleby, the Scrivener" is a story about the physical and mental degeneration of a man, an alienation of an individual from his own humanity (Blake, 1978) (Bergmann, 2003) (Hunt, 1994) (Robertson, 1998) (Sundararajan, 1990).

The relationships between the old lawyer and his employees are very important in "Bartleby, the Scrivener" (Blake, 1978). The old lawyer as the narrator makes numerous mention in this story of the employee's detailed preferences about food, bad habits like ink being spilled and their dispositions (Hunt, 1994). They may be his employees but he appears to treat them as if they were his children (Bergmann, 2003) (Robertson, 1998). The narrator treats them all with sympathy and understanding (Hunt, 1994). Bergmann says this explains why he treats the new employee Bartleby with such loving care after he hires him.

The relationship between the old lawyer narrator and his new clerk Bartleby is the primary focus of this story. Bartleby originally and continually creates puzzlement in the narrator when he rejects requests many times with the gentle statements of "I would prefer not to" (Robertson, 1998). These polite and gentle replies to his boss's simple, common requests frame Bartleby as a mystery to the narrator. The narrator sees him as a new child to be protected and eventually helped to do the right thing (Sundararajan, 1990). Blake points out that this is"a love story at least to the extent that Freud speaks of love as a brief psychosis". But compassion seems to have it limits. Melville has the narrator say, "If Bartleby will not quit me, I must quit him"(1106). Blake agrees that the final stage is set for the narrator to reject Bartleby after numerous incidents. The relationship between the narrator and Bartleby in this story does seem to be a form of fixation that goes past any normal level of subjective human caring (Blake, 1978) (Hunt, 1994) (Sundararajan, 1990).

The wording in the story shows Bartleby's external character to any reader. Hunt writes that he is depicted as having "great stillness", being "incurably forlorn" and having a "morbid moodiness". I note that characters in this Melville story observe that Bartleby wrote "mechanically"(1096), "has no appetite, no friends or family"(1098), was "absolutely alone in the universe"(1109) and that "his eccentricities are involuntary"(1096). Sundararajan writes that Bartleby exhibits "dead-wall reveries" that appears to be a sign of mental illness. These descriptions of abnormal actions and moods are signs of mental problems. The author Melville hints to us of Bartleby's mental health with story statements of "I think he is a little deranged" (1110) and "it was his soul that suffered and his soul I could not reach"(1098). Taken together this seems to confirm the symptoms of an affective mental illness (Blake, 1978) (Hunt, 1994) (Sundararajan, 1990). I believe that these personality problems lead to his final disintegration.

Throughout this story, the physical symbols in use support and define the subjective captivity of Bartleby's person and personality. Multiple allusions in this story are made about the confining areas; the blank walls, brick walls and privacy screens. These indicate to a reader that Bartleby's environment has rigid constraints. Bartleby is consistent in his manner of reacting to these perceived constraints. At the end of the story, Bartleby was left to roam free inside prison. True to this mental state, he seeks out a high wall in a quiet courtyard, turns towards it and rejects open space (Blake, 1978) (Hunt, 1994) (Robertson, 1998).

The story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" depicts the deterioration of Bartleby as seen by the narrator and other story characters. Bartleby's challenges to normal patterns of human actions make conflict. Bartleby's subjective loneness and deterioration is pointed out through numerous story details. The reader is shown that avoidance of conflict by offering compliance is one of many standard human reactions. It may often be mistaken for compassion or turn into compassion. Some of the characters in this story offer help and kindness but finally reject Bartleby as he continues to physically and mentally degenerate. The reader never knows what is inside Bartleby mind and he stays an enigma from beginning to the end. Bartleby's psychological deterioration shows him as unbalanced and that separates him from all others and even himself. In the end, he looses his humanity (Blake, 1978) (Bergmann, 2003) (Hunt, 1994) (Robertson, 1998) (Sundararajan, 1990).

Works Cited:

Bergmann, Hans. Analyzing A Melville Story.2003. History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course on the Web. 20 June 2007 .

Blake, Nancy. Mourning and Melancholia in Bartleby. 1978. Criticism and Sources. 16 June 2007 < http://web.ku.edu/~zeke/bartleby/blake.htm>.

Hunt, Marvin. Turning Tongues and Heads in Bartleby, the Scrivener. 1994. That's the Word. 17 June 2007< http://web.ku.edu/~zeke/bartleby/hunt.html>.

Melville, Herman. "Bartleby, the Scrivener". The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. W.W. Norton and Company: New York, New York 2003. 1086 - 1111.

Robertson, Chris. Bartleby Unbound. 15 Apr 1998. Etsu.edu. 19 June 2007 .

Sundararajan, Louise. Being as Refusal: Melville's Bartleby as Heideggerian Anti-Hero. 1990. Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. 19 Jun 2007 .