Bartleby, Essay 1

In reading Bartleby, The Scrivener, I was most interested in the internal conflict going on with the narrator of the tale.  For my class we were assigned to write a paper based on our choice of thesis about the meaning of the work.  I chose to write about the breakdown of the story's narrator and how Bartleby is in fact a manifestation of part of the narrator, and doesn't actually exist as a scrivener employed in his office.

Bartleby, The Scrivener, by Herman Melville is more than the reader initially thinks.  The character Bartleby is not really an employee of the narrator, but is instead actually a facet of himself that he projects into being, as he struggles with his own work and life ambitions.  He uses the imaginary scrivener to work more effectively for some time, but the conflict between this facet and the rest of him being escalates until he is anything but industrious.

From the very beginning of the tale, the narrator tells us that he “believe(s) that no materials exist for a full and satisfactory biography of this man.” (Melville 1)  There is no past for Bartleby, nor is there reason to need to look into his background because he is part of the narrator.  Even from the beginning the narrator trusts him implicitly, stating, “I had a singular confidence in his honesty.  I felt my most precious papers perfectly safe in his hands” (Melville 29) despite that he continues to reiterate that, “he had declined telling who he was, or whence he came.” (Melville 35)

One of the biggest challenges the narrator faces, is that he is struggling with being industrious in his work.  He claims that, “I am a man who, from his youth upwards, has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.” (Melville 4)  Here he states that he believes in doing the minimum of work, and really tells us that he has no high aspirations in life.  Through Bartleby’s presence, he has the opportunity to manifest his desire to be more productive in his work.  He mentions that he is getting older, and perhaps with this realization is looking at his life and how under-achieving he has been.  But almost from the outset, even Bartleby still exudes the narrators apathy as he notes, “I should have been quite delighted with his application, had he been cheerfully industrious.  But he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically.” (Melville 15)

Bartleby becomes a constant presence in the workplace.  “As days passed on, I became considerably reconciled to Bartleby, his incessant industry (except when he chose to throw himself into a standing revery behind his screen), his great, stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under all circumstances, made him a valuable acquisition.  One prime thing was this,- he was always there;- first thing in the morning, continually through the day, and the last at night.” (Melville 29)  First the narrator notes that Bartleby is always present at work, and attributes it to his industry, but eventually comes to the realization that Bartleby must be living in his office.  The area of his life that Bartleby is connected with is exclusively the work environment, so compartmentalizing this aspect of himself in this manner helps him to isolate it from the rest of his life.  “I observed that he never went to dinner; indeed that he never went any where.  As yet I had never of my personal knowledge known him to be outside my office.” (Melville 23)  Bartleby is only necessary in the workplace, and thus only exists there.

As the tale progresses, the narrator and Bartleby become more intertwind.  The lawyer feels a deep connection to the man Bartleby who he describes, and despite the scrivener’s refusal to participate in checking over his work, and eventual refusal to even work at copying, he cannot bring himself to fire him. “Had there been anything ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises.” (Melville 18)  Indeed there is nothing truly human about the apparition that is Bartleby.  He continually refuses to do work by saying that he would prefer not to do it, and the lawyer starts hearing people use the word prefer all the time.  He even admits to it creeping into his own vocabulary, and reflects on the way that the Bartleby part of him is manifesting and beginning to affect other aspects of his life.  “Somehow, of late I had got into the way of involuntarily using this word ‘prefer’ upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions.  And I trembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already and seriously affected me in a mental way.  And what further and deeper aberration might it not yet produce?” (Melville 39)  When he finally seems able to separate himself from the scrivener he finds that he is pained by the loss of that part of himself, “Yes, my procedure had worked to a charm; he indeed must be vanished.  Yet a certain melancholy mixed with this: I was almost sorry for my brilliant success.” (Melville 46)

Bartleby is referenced to several times as a non-living or inhuman being.  The narrator notes that he is not like a human in any way of his manner, and thus he cannot put him out.  He later asks what aberrations Bartleby may cause to affect him.  Bartleby is in fact himself the aberration, “a very ghost, agreeabl(e) to the laws of magical invocation.” (Melville 27)  He seems to be completely detached from the rest of the office, and persists in efficient copying on so long as he prefers to, then quits himself of the task, and simply exists in the corner of the office, taking up a part of the narrators space, a place in his life, while still being hidden behind his screen.

The lawyer is pained by Bartleby’s situation and considers that he, “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.” (Melville 36)  The internal strife that is going on is deep within the lawyers soul, and he knows not how to address it.  He concerns himself with the scrivener to the point that he gives him extra money that he never takes.  He even notes that the money just falls to the floor when he hands it to the nonexistent man.  The lawyer  “slipp(ed) something in his hand.  But it dropped upon the floor.”( Melville 56)   He considers the time that he has spent with Bartleby, noting “I now recalled all the quiet mysteries which I had noted in the man.  I remembered that he never spoke but to answer.” (Melville 33)  It seems odd that he would have such a connection to the man if he were not a part of himself, that deep seeded desire to succeed, but so lacking in life. 

Even from the beginning, the narrator feels trapped in his current situation.  He discusses that through time the city around his office had grown, until “within three feet of the panes was a wall, and the light came down from far above.” (Melville 15)   This theme continues as he discusses Bartleby’s propensity for staring out at that wall for hours at a time.  This is echoed again in his description on the prison courtyard when he goes to visit Bartleby in jail, where “he slowly moved to the other side of the inclosure, and took up a position fronting the dead-wall.” (Melville 65)

Though the narrator contends that “Hence, though I belong to a profession proverbially energetic and nervous, even to turbulence, at times, yet nothing of that sort have I ever suffered to invade my peace, “(Melville 4) it is clear that through his interactions with the scrivener Bartleby, he does indeed find himself in such a state.  In what is his obvious internal dialog, he speaks to Bartleby, “I never feel so private as when I know you are here.  At last I see it, I feel it; I penetrate to the predestined purpose of my life.  I am content.”( Melville 51)  Although the narrator attempts to have industry in his professional life, and to spend his last years of working aspiring to something more, he ends up not being able to reconcile himself to such a life, and instead prefers not to rise to anything more than he already is.

Works Cited

Melville, Herman. Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. 1853. Kindle Edition.