In Bartleby, the Scrivener, a short story written by Herman Melville in 1853, explores two main characters in a very unusual relationship. The narrator, who is a lawyer that owns a business proceed to hire, Bartleby, for extra help. Bartleby works really well from the beginning, but later slacks off and eventually discontinue to work. Especially when the narrators ask Bartleby to examine some paperwork, he quotes “I would prefer not to.” This incident startles the narrator, who was silence and stunned by Bartleby’s comment and behavior. The narrator continues to succeed in his business, but faces a challenging dilemma with one of his best employees, Bartleby. The narrator’s emotions (also trying to be a good Christian) gets involve and does not know how to deal with Bartleby’s psychological problems. The narrator faces a moral dilemma with Bartleby, where he contemplates between nurturing Bartleby and continuing to stress himself, or to move away from Bartleby and let him suffer.
The narrator is trying to help Bartleby, but before he could do that, he has to understand Bartleby’s consciousness, behavior, and social interaction. The story does not mention Bartleby’s family, friends, or significant other, which makes the reader assume hes an odd character. Bartleby’s behavior or mental process can be affected by biological, psychological, and/or social factors. Louise Sundarajan notes Bartleby displays “dead wall reveries” showing signs of a mental illness or mental problems. Even though, the narrator is an educated man, he is no psychiatrist, who does not study, understands, prevent, relieve, and solve problems on a person’s well being or mental activity. Bartleby’s behavior does display mental illness like schizophrenia or dementia, a disorder with inappropriate reactions to situation; dissociate onself from reality, or impairment of intellectual capacity and personality. What was unique was that the narrator and Bartleby’s personality and background was hardly mention in the story (the narrators does mention a little about himself), which makes it hard to understand both character. The only information that we (reader) could retrieve is by the narrators statements from this short story. Todd Davis notes,"If we are to understand Bartleby or Nippers or Turkey or Ginger Nut or even the lawyer himself, we may do so only through the words of the lawyer. All actions, all dialogue, all statements, all interpretations come to the reader through the report of the lawyer. Therefore, if we contend we know anything of Bartleby, it is only what the narrator knows of Bartleby, and if we are to have any insight into the narrator, it must be through the examination of his own words."
Bartleby status, working in wallstreet around a lawyer, deals with power, control, wealth and greed. It is possible that Bartleby could be disappointed by this society of corruption from what he has read or observed at work. He could be on an independent strike because he does not like the power the narrator maintians. The power with the ability to influence the behavior of others with or without consent, the power to gain authority, the power to gain wealth. Bartleby probably realize he’s a working zombie for the elites for the wrong cause, and decide to rebel by expressing his constitution rights. The first amendment is built to serve a citizen with a sense of freedom, which gives Bartleby the freedom of speech, also gives him the right not to speak, but no right could be made without consequences. Bartleby is expressing that certain things don’t have to be the way they are, he can choose to do or “prefer not to” do his job.
Most supervisor or companies would have got rid of Bartleby for his poor behavior, but not the narrator. The reader can feel that certain parts of the story the narrator could have understand Bartleby. The narrator also displayed compassion for Bartleby. Even though Bartleby stops doing his job and continues to stay in the vicinity, the narrator still has sympathy for him. This just shows that the narrator is a very emotional person, which makes the situation hard for him to get rid of Bartleby. Why does the narrator gets attached or emotional involve with Bartleby, who doesn’t seem to care for anybody or anything? Is it because the narrator is a dedicated Christian or that’s just his personality? At the beginning of the story, the narrator explains himself as an elderly, who prefer “the easiest way of life is the best” (20). This already displays the narrator’s personality as easy going with little controversy in life. The narrator’s background makes it hard to deal with Bartleby’s passive resistance or nonviolence behavior. Nancy Blake believes that Bartleby degenerates into offering passive resistance and causes the people around him to react in many different ways. This leads to the narrator’s only solution was to also use nonviolence, leaving Bartleby alone and eventually moving to a different location. Even though Bartleby have the constitution rights to back him up, he does not realize that there are limitations on what he can or cannot do. Cesar Chavez a farm laborer and civil rights activist also uses nonviolence to help him fight for his cause (help farm workers have better working condition and pay) and succeeded. For Bartleby, his plans or whatever his intention was (he prefer not to tell), most likely backed fired on him. Bartleby was offered help by the narrator, but refused and left to stray in the building. The new owner came and later had Bartleby removed from the building leaving him outside and eventually into jail.
In some time in life a person faces a dilemma and the toughest is one are moral dilemmas. A person who deals with two possible choices to their dilemma could be very crucial. Facing a person fears and putting their self in a tough situations making informed and honest decision trying to overcome that situation. Unfortunately, the narrator had to make that decision, by leaving Bartleby, who eventually ended up in jail and sadly died from starvation because he “prefer not to” eat.
Blake, Nancy. Mourning and Melancholia in Bartleby. 1978. Criticism and Sources. 29
November 2011 < http://web.ku.edu/~zeke/bartleby/blake.htm>.
Sundararajan, Louise. Being as Refusal: Melville's Bartleby as Heideggerian Anti-Hero.
1990. Janus Head: Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies. 28 November 2011.
Melvelle, Herman. “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” Literature: A Portable Anthology. Ed. Janet
E. Gardner. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford, 2009. 20-50. Print.
Davis, Todd F. "The Narrator's Dilemma in 'Bartleby the Scrivener': The Excellently Illustrated Re-statement of a Problem." Studies in Short Fiction 34.2 (1997): 183. Expanded Academic ASAP. Web. 27 Nov. 2011
