Essay 2 - Literary Analysis

Aaron Isaacson

English 102

Mrs. Cline

20 February 2012

Bartleby’s Ultimatum – Conformity or Death

The short story, “Bartleby the Scrivener” by Herman Melville, is about a legal copyist named Bartleby who works for the narrator in a law office. Bartleby begins as an efficient and seemingly motivated employee, but his efforts soon begin to deteriorate.  He gradually withdraws from work until participation ceases altogether. He spends his days staring through a window at a brick wall. Each time he is asked why he does not perform his duties, he replies, “I prefer not to” (Melville, par. 21).  In essence, Bartleby uses passive resistance to protest the nature of his workplace. Ultimately, the narrator relocates his office and Bartleby is arrested when he refuses to vacate the premises. Bartleby is taken to prison where he continues to challenge humanity’s norms. Bartleby, preferring not to eat, dies in prison. Bartleby is the hero of Melville’s story in his refusal to participate in a workplace that represents the sad, dreary atmosphere of a bureaucratic, industrialized society. Evidence of such a workplace can be seen in examination of Bartleby’s work environment, the nature of his work, the coping mechanisms of the copyists, and the values of his employer.

The environment of the law office is incredibly sterile and lifeless. The narrator describes the office as dusty, uncarpeted and having a haggard appearance. The view from one end is deficient of landscape while the other end offers a view of a brick wall. There is such a lack in furniture and décor that when the office is packed up and moved, it only takes a few hours. Bartleby works in the same room as the narrator; confined to a screened off section which the narrator calls a hermitage. He is kept out of sight but within sound’s reach if he is to be summoned.  Marcus interprets a sense of alienation and a feeling of being trapped: “The setting on Wall Street indicates that the characters are in a kind of prison, walled off from the world” (Lazzari 377).  Until now, the narrator has been shielded from the world’s despair but now he is forced to realize its presence is his own office. He has a moment of clarity: “Ah, happiness courts the light, so we deem the world is gay; but misery hides aloof, so we deem that misery there is none” (Melville, par. 89). Bureaucratic ideology surfaces when the narrator expresses a need to be near city hall. Bartleby is no stranger to dreary and bureaucratic environments as his previous employment was with a dead-letter office.  The reader may reasonably speculate that a dead letter office has a similar type of environment and a sense of hopelessness. It seems it is all Bartleby has ever experienced. The environment of the prison is also sad and bureaucratic. The prison is referred to as the tombs. The name implies it is a place for men to rot away and die instead of rehabilitate. The grub man asks the narrator, ““Does he want to starve? If he does, let him live on the prison fare, that’s all” (Melville, par. 225). The prisoners are condemned to a slow death because the prison fare is inadequate. Bartleby heroically refuses to accept society’s conditions via passive resistance and, finally, must give his life.

The nature of work at the law office is best described as dreary. It has a robotic quality. In fact, in modern times, copying is done almost exclusively by machines. The narrator describes one of the copyist’s duties: “Where there are two or more scriveners in an office, they assist each other in this examination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original. It is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair” (Melville, par. 19). The tasks of a scrivener are tedious and mind-numbing. The legal papers are essentially indecipherable and full of jargon. Bartleby implies they are of no value when he refuses to proof read his copies. It is a mechanical and monotonous profession that evokes depression. Bartleby’s eyes become “dull and glazed” (Melville, par. 131) from dreary incessant copying. With vision impaired he ceases all work obligations in protest. In the end, the narrator is compelled to discover an inner compassion which has been repressed by a dreary mundane practice.

A third indication of a sad and dreary workplace is the means of coping used by Bartleby and his fellow scriveners. One scrivener, named Turkey, is relentlessly perturbed. He is noisy, blots drafts and scatters papers about. Turkey resorts to alcoholism, rendering him ineffective by midday.  The narrator admits sadness to see a man of his age in such condition. He deduces Turkey is, “… a man whom prosperity harmed” (Melville, par. 11). The narrator does not accept that a sad and dreary workplace results in such behavior and instead blames prosperity. Another scrivener, Nippers, is frantically irritable. He copes by grinding his teeth, muttering and constantly readjusting his table. His speech is likened to hissing. Nippers is incapable of gathering himself until after midday. Bartleby begins as an efficient worker, perhaps to mask the sterility of the office, but loses motivation and unofficially resigns. He copes by complete withdrawal from normal life: “His refusal is paradoxical, for he rejects the illusion of personality in an impersonal world by retreating to another kind of impersonality which alone makes that world endurable” (Lazzari 377). He never speaks except to answer and stares through the window at a brick wall for a large fraction of the day. The narrator eventually recognizes that Bartleby’s soul is troubled and cannot be mended with material goods.  In effect, Bartleby does nothing more than subsist: “Upon more closely examining the place, I surmised that for an indefinite period Bartleby must have ate, dressed, and slept in my office, and that too without plate, mirror, or bed” (Melville, par. 87). Bartleby goes without basic necessities in protest. He prefers not to conform to an industrialized and beurocratic lifestyle and copes by abstaining.

The narrator’s values are exposed throughout the text. He describes himself as a lawyer who lacks ambition, refrains from addressing a jury, and does not seek public approval. The lawyer desires isolation and limits his affairs to include only affluent members of society. Marcus suggests, “The lawyer’s easygoing detachment- he calls himself an ‘eminently safe man’- represents an attempt at a calm adjustment to the Wall Street world, an adjustment which is threatened by Bartleby’s implicit, and also calm, criticism of its endless and sterile routine” (Lazzari 377). His work ethic and fear of taking risks yield a dreary environment whose primary focus is industry and bureaucracy. When Bartleby begins the job, he is valued for industriousness. At first, he is reliable, steady, and productive.  Bartleby has a constant demeanor and is always available when needed for copying of the highest priority. As long as the lawyer’s workers are industrious, he could care less about their psychological welfare or inner qualities such as character. When the lawyer is locked out and learns that Bartleby has been living in the office, he is more concerned about his authority being undermined. It is a very sad situation, when one values their authority over another’s state of well-being. The lawyer does become more generous, but, sadly, his motivation in not in helping Bartleby; it is to ease his own conscience. In a final attempt to ease his conscience and sever his ties with Bartleby, the lawyer offers Bartleby a pity disbursement. Bartleby declines, however, in such a bureaucratic organization, the show must go on.

Bartleby is not only heroic but becomes a martyr in giving his life to support a cause. His willpower and bravery are reflected in his determination to evade compliance. Bartleby observes the other scriveners and cannot accept coping as they have. He rejects sad and dreary elements of an industrialized and bureaucratic work environment; including the value system it represents. Bartleby embraces the power of choice as he prefers to withdraw. Choice being his only device, he battles the system until the bitter end. Bartleby concludes the morose nature of existence does not justify living. His sacrifice has a profound impact on the narrator. Perhaps, the lawyer will be inspired to implement invigoration and humanitarian values into his practice. In Bartleby’s ultimatum, he chooses death before submitting to society’s stranglehold.

Work Cited

Lazzari, Marie. Nineteenth-Century Literature Criticism. 49. Detroit: Gale Research, 1995. 375-430. Web. <http://galenet.galegroup.com.proxy.yc.edu/servlet/LitCrit?dd=0&locID=yava&d1=NCLC_049_0009&srchtp=b&c=14&df=r&d2=1&docNum=FJ3573150009&b0=bartleby&h2=1&vrsn=1.0&srs=ALL&b1=KE&d6=1&d3=1&ste=10&stp=DateDescend&d4=1.0&n=10&d5=d6>.  

Melville, Herman. Bartleby, The Scrivener, A Story of Wall-street. 2. New York: G&P Putnam & Co., 1853. Web. <http://www.bartleby.com/129/>.