Herman Melville's Bartleby, The Scrivener

In this day and age, we tend to think of business in terms of the bottom line and financial metrics, where there is no place for empathy or indulgence. Most of us would agree that an employee who refuses to obey the orders of his superior without a good reason should be dismissed from his job. Employer’s leniency towards his rebellious subordinates always cause astonishment and raise questions about the hidden reasons for such extraordinary tolerance. A situation like this was presented in Herman Melville’s short story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” The titular character starts out as the narrator’s best employee, but after three days he suddenly begins to stop working altogether without facing any disciplinary constraints from his boss. The passages
Based upon a few vague and ambiguous excerpts from the story, an argument can be made for the presence of some very faint homosexual undertones. Although there is not really much to base the argument on, some might claim that the lawyer’s interest in Bartleby and his indulgent attitude toward him is in fact a hidden romantic desire or simply gay solidarity. One evidence the claim can be built on is a fragment from the text, where the narrator states that Bartleby spoke to him “in a flutelike tone” (Melville 13), what can interpreted as womanly or gay voice. We can assume that the scrivener’s flutelike speaking tone might have come in pairs with his gay-like appearance and mannerism, thanks to which the lawyer could intuitively asses his new worker’s sexual orientation and become emotionally involved with him. There are a few other
Given the story’s 19th century setting and stigma linked to homosexuality at that time, it can be motivated by gay solidarity and the suffering possibly experienced by the narrator himself, but it also could be entirely isolated from his own experience. The narrator could see in his scrivener a son, a friend or anybody else he knew before who experienced oppression because of his preferences. He describes Bartleby as “the victim of innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body; but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered, and his soul I could not reach” (21). This illustration fits the then perspective of homosexuality as an illness. This interpretation can explain why he cares for him, shields him from the world, wants to keep him safe, away from cruel treatment and does not want others to judge him: “If I turn him away, the chances are he will fall in with some less-indulgent employer, and then he will be rudely treated, and perhaps driven forth miserably to starve” (10). When his other employee wants to “black Bartleby’s eye”, he also protects him, like any father would protect his son from bullying. Finally, when Bartleby finds himself without a place to live, the lawyer invites him to move in with him: “Bartleby, will you go home with me now, not to my office, but my dwelling, and remain there until we can conclude upon some convenient arrangement for you at your leisure?”