Analysis Of Bartleby The Scrivener

“Bartleby The Scrivener” is a story by Herman Melville about a man who gets a job as a copier at a law firm but shirks all his responsibilities in favor of a simple phrase; “I would prefer not to.” This is already an odd concept for a story, and although Bartleby is one of the hardest characters to understand in literature, the setting makes it both more and less profound at the same time. On one hand, the hectic time of business where it is set makes sense that a law firm such as the one that belongs to the narrator is forced to hire new help makes sense, but on the other hand, it makes it all the stranger that Bartleby would act the way he does. The setting of the story is very important, as without it, the story would not make sense at all.
At the time of writing, the market is experiencing a huge boom and businesses everywhere are getting sudden demand increases. All this is because of the rapid expansion of capitalism, which simultaneously brings profit to owners but also holds a tight grip over their lives, with the idealism that “you must do something, or something must be done to you.” (Melville 197). In this sense, all the parts of a business working seamlessly are necessary for it to survive, and Bartleby throws a wrench into the economic machine of the owner’s establishment by acting the way he does. The fact that the owner is so business driven in his pursuits means that Bartleby is something truly fascinating to him. When someone who describes himself as liking to make money, and having a role model who is a billionaire, something amazing must happen for him to lose that incentive of profit to understand Bartleby. The raging desperation to make money in the times, and the fact that the narrator is willing to give that up to make sense of the situation, combined with the time that the story is set in gives the reader a truer understanding about how strange Bartleby is in the world of the