What Is Bartleby The Scrivener

“Bartleby the Scrivener,” written by Herman Melville, is very queer, and is deceptively simple. The Lawyer, a well established man working on Wall Street, hires a copyist—one who seems no different than any other copyist. However, Bartleby is different. His first response of “I would prefer not to,” (119) seems very innocent at first, but soon becomes a mantra. However, the strangeness of this story resonates at a much larger scale. By thoroughly examining the story, we can see the way Melville achieves in demonstrating the modern world through his story. “Bartleby the Scrivener” is a story of corporate dissatisfaction. The description of the office is incredibly gloomy, and the landscape of Wall Street is artificial. The work environment is desolate and dreary. However, it is easy to adapt it, with different degrees of success. Although the narrator is a prosperous man, he is a victim of progress. The narrator says “For the first time in my life a feeling of overpowering stinging melancholy seized me.” (124) This “overpowering” can be related to his softness, which makes
His environment cuts him off from the rest of nature. Day by day, Bartleby’s window stares at a wall. Wall Street has an artificial and boring landscape, and Bartleby resides there in the night, when the bustling of the gigantic human population disappears and the streets become empty. The narrator is astonished to hear that Bartleby stays in the office day and night. He says “His solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a Sunday, Wall Street Is deserted as Petra; and every night of every day it is an emptiness.” (123-24) The narrator attempts to help him, but in the end he gives up. In the story, this is exaggerated by making Bartleby die because of this isolation. Melville associates this with the real world by giving us a ramification about being absorbed in work and isolated from the rest of the