Bartleby the Scrivener

[Maddy44]

Bartleby is a combination of post - the Liberty Pole - as body, and woman - the Liberty Lady - as soul. Google half-dimes from 1853, or better yet go to Greatseal.com and look at the versions of the Liberty Lady/Pole that competed with Eye for pride of place on the Great Seal. As a past incarnation of Liberty, the symbol comes back to haunt the current symbols of the Great Seal of the United States, engaged in imprinting themselves as copies on stationary, seals, stamps, coins and statuary. Turkey and Nippers are American Eagles, one the original, the second a newer realization in 1841. Ginger Nut is the cake of stars (cake of nuts) above the American Eagle's head. The I - the narrator - is the Eye that floats in his "snug" office above the Pyramid's - the lower office's - top. Take out a dollar bill. Match the characters, then read the story again. The story becomes even more funny, and the pathos of poor Lady Liberty and her vanishing act finally makes it touching as well.

[Wilde woman]

He is, as the expression goes, dirt poor, and he works day and night until he begins losing his sight in order to accumulate some modest savings (which the narrator discovers when rifling through Bartleby's belongings).

Forgive me for jumping in about a year late, but I just read this last night.

Does Bartleby truly lose his eyesight? I got the impression that he simply (inexplicably) wanted to stop working.

[Nemo Neem]

I absolutely loved this story. Bartleby, to me, represents those queer, odd questions that cannot be answered, such as "Why does God exist?", or "Why are we here?" Through a business standpoint, Bartleby is someone who a boss wants to fire, but can't because "Bartleby" technically has done nothing wrong. Also, there is a political influence. Bartleby wants to speak his mind; he refuses to do what the government tells him to do, and so, he's forced out of town because the government views him as an outcast.

[atiguhya padma]

Isn't Bartleby the illustration of the impotence of scepticism or solipsism?

[JamieSueAustin]

Just found this place after reading this story... figured I'd post the thoughts I jotted down while reading it.

The first thing I notice is the slow, methodical writing and the intense focus on minute detail. The characterizations of the other three scriveners make them more caricatures of humans than actual human beings, with Turkey and Nipper being denied their given names in favor of titles to which no attributes fully fit, given only half of a whole portion of functionality. Ginger Nut is productive worker, but has little in terms of character development. Bartelby is fleshed out more than the other three, though he is often given the attributes of a ghost or corpse.

The narrator puzzles me. His first statement: I am an elderly man... it seems as if he says it to qualify his authority, but he has no authority. He falls to the whims of his colleagues and clients. His office is overrun by employees that do as they will and he regards their eccentricities with the eye of a collector instead of the sternness of a boss. In a way he is a lot like Bartelby, cloistered away in his own world. But, the difference is that Bartelby chooses not to participate while the lawyer cannot gather in himself the same sense of power.

The lawyer's response to Bartelby's passive resistance intrigued me. I guess someone could consider it symptom of his charitable nature, but to me it shows a weakness of character and a tendency to fall in line when challenged. If Bartelby reflects the dying soul of a working class man forced to perform repetitive tasks till he dries up and blows away, then his resistance is heroic. That makes the lawyer another cog in the wheel, as faceless and nameless as any of the other characters in the office. Aside from that, the lawyer's motivation for indulging Bartelby was not altruistic because it "will eventually prove a sweet morsel for my [his] conscious."

When the lawyer is foist from his office by Bartelby I see in my head the image of two dogs of equal size. One with a constant, steadfast gaze and the other, head cowered, backing slowly away. The lawyer pities Bartelby because he lives in the office, but shouldn't we pity the lawyer, who can't hold his own territory? The lawyer looks at Bartelby like an outcast leper, but Bartelby has willfully withdrawn from society. The reasoning behind his withdrawal is debatable, but his ability to decline from life is a show of will the lawyer does not possess.

There is the issue of the word prefer… A singular and purposeful choice on behalf of Melville. To prefer… To favor one thing against another…. To give priority to somebody…. And in law: to make a charge against somebody by submitting details of the alleged offense to a court, magistrate, or judge for examination, or prosecute such a charge.

Did the poor reception of Melville’s more introspective, symbolic works leave him accusatory and depressed? Through Bartelby did he show both his contempt for the readers of his time? Did he feel he was being pressed into copying his previous works? Would he have rather withdrew his brilliance than be forced into a life of literary slavery? If the eyes are the windows to the soul does the clouding of Bartelby’s vision reflect the dying of his soul or does it reflect Melville’s disillusionment with the literary world? Did Melville choose Bartelby’s mantra “I’d prefer not to” to both accuse readers of being superficial while showing his contempt for writing only what paid well and not what was truly the essence of himself? The lawyer’s illusions to Bartelby’s isolation…did they convey Melville’s own feelings of isolation at being poorly understood by his peers? Does the lawyer, who in brief moments attempts to understand and indulge Bartelby, and is admonished by his peers further show Melville’s irritation with those who more freely listen to the voices of critics than of the author’s themselves? Did he feel abandoned by a readership that once adored him?

There’s a subtle humor in a professional man of decent standing running from his own offices because someone has refused to leave. Not because that someone is violent or disruptive, but just because he cannot be removed. Bartleby does not move. The world moves around him. He is steadfast, whatever the event. Others are weakened into action by his immobility. They cower in face of his unrelenting apathy. Great torrents of emotion spring up around him because he reacts to nothing. What a statement on the power of passive resistance!
Bartelby, preferring no change be made at all, preferring to be stationary, solitary, absent from the interactions around him, is sent to the aptly named Tombs. Like a corpse being buried. The illusion to the Egyptian tombs, Bartelby’s abstinence from food, his death, mimic the ideas of mummification and the idea of the body as a vessel that can be emptied and refilled at will. Bartelby, who handled the affairs of the dead, saw the completed endeavors of life condensed and burned away, instilled in himself the very essence of death and willed it. A case could be made that Bartelby suffered a most severe case of a clinical depression and that the retelling of his life by the narrator is similar to the medical charts of a psychiatrist, detailing his progression as his spirals down into the depths of the disease…
But, there’s the wall to consider.

Always, he stared at the wall. The lawyer saw the wall, but Bartelby understood it. The limitations, the confinement, the imprisonment implied by every wall in every office in every part of the world. Is a man meant only to work, make money, and die? If so, what is the point of it? It was, after all, “A Story of Wall-Street.” A story of how industrialization demotes a man from a person to a product. Was Melville putting a charge against society as a whole? Oh Humanity? Sacrificing soul for bits of silver? I don’t know. But, overall it was a good read with lots of tidbits to chew on.