Read "Bartleby, the Scrivener" (pages 1953-1978)

    It's common for students to say that just don't understand why Bartleby acts the way he does, or why the narrator just doesn't throw him out.  Probably, Melville intended to create a portrait of a man who is as inscrutable to the reader as he is to the narrator.  Such a technique helps the reader to understand more deeply the strong emotional response of the narrator to the curious and disturbing figure of Bartleby.

    Although the title claims that the story is "about" Bartleby, many readers conclude that the story is really much more deeply illustrative of the narrator than it is of the scrivener.  Why does the narrator elicit such exasperation?  Compare what we learn about the narrator with what we know for certain about Bartleby.  Why, then, does Melville call this story a "story of Wall Street"?  Walls are obviously important symbols in this tale: the initial description of the office features the sunny white wall at one end of the room and the black brick wall, like a cistern, at the other end.  Bartleby stares at the walls for hours on end, not only at the office, but again once he is dispatched to the Tombs.  Is there a difference between the narrator's attitude towards walls and Bartleby's views?

    Three major approaches to this story are briefly listed here.  One: Melville may have created a kind of self-portrait in Bartleby, a figure who refuses to abide by society's rules.  Two: he may have been offering a statement on the plight of artists, particularly writers, in mid-19th century America--who labor futilely and mindlessly, creating nothing but copies of other writers' works, which are, in short, "dead letters" of their own.  Three: Melville may have been commenting on the divide he sees among humanity itself: one part motivator/one part unmotivated; active/passive; life, action/death, statis; sound and fury/signifying nothing.  This dualistic reading is further supported by the obviously contrastive roles of Turkey and Nippers.

    When does a man become nothing -- and how might such a state be described?  This approach is my favorite to help explain Bartleby.  In the prologue to the story, the narrator tels us that "no materials exist for a full and satisfactory biography of the man."  From that point on, Bartleby is described in a series of negatives--his window has "no view," he never answers, he never goes out, he has no family, he eats nothing but ginger cakes, he repeatedly responds that he would prefer "not to. . ."  Bartleby has no setting in space or in time; in fact, he has no particular concrete social context, no "life" at all.  Indeed, out of the story's 16,000 words, Bartleby only speaks 37 short lines, more than a third of which are "I would prefer not to."  How can "nothingness" be better represented?  How can one make a successful story out of a character who does/is nothing?
 
 

Discussion Questions for "Bartleby, the Scrivener"

1.    What does the subtitle of "Bartleby" suggest? What is the significance of Wall Street and the walls in the story?  Don't overlook the contrasting images of white and black walls.
2.    What is the significance of the information that the narrator provides about himself and his employees at the beginning of the story? How does it prepare us to understand Bartleby and the narrator's attitude toward him?  In what ways in "B" really a story of the narrator?
3.    Why does Melville tell the story from the point of view of the employer rather than of the office staff or of Bartleby himself? What effect does this narrative strategy have on the reader?  If it draws you in emotionally, must you not consider at some point whether the story is mis-titled?
4.    How reliable is the narrator? Are there any indications that he might be obtuse or unreliable? Give examples.
5.    Which character, in fact, is the story's protagonist?  Explain your answer.
6.    Explain the function of the minor characters: Turkey, Nippers, Ginger Nut.  Why do you think they are introduced to the reader before Bartleby is?
7.    Describe Bartleby's physical characteristics.  How does it foreshadow his final portrait?  What incident unleashes Bartleby's passive resistance? What escalates it at each point?  Isn't "passive resistance" an oxymoron?
8.    What ethic does Melville implicitly oppose to the ethic of Wall Street? (This question leads into a discussion of the New Testament echoes running through the story.)
9.    What are the stages of Bartleby's progressive withdrawal from the world?  Can you make a connection between Bartleby's withdrawal and, say, that of Roderick Usher or other fictional character we've met?
10.    How do you explain Bartleby's attitude towards the narrator at the Tombs?  How do you explain the narrator's continued fascination with Bartleby?  Why not just dismiss him?
11.    Explain the last long paragraph of the story.  Now explain the last four words.  What is the significance of the postscript the narrator appends to the story? What psychological (or ideological) purpose does it serve for the narrator?
12.    Part of what fascinates the reader (and possibly Melville himself) about Bartleby is his inscrutability. Describe the various "walls" Bartleby finds himself trapped behind and explore the ways in which the story's structure or design reinforces the reader's inability to penetrate the inscrutability of those walls.
 

Selected Bibliography

Bellis, P.  No Mysteries Out of Ourselves: Identity and Textural Form in the Novels of
    Herman Melville, 1990.
Bickley, R. B.  The Method of Melville's Short Fiction.  1975.
Green, John M. "Bartleby, the Perfect Pupil."  American Transcendental Quarterly 7.1 (Mar
    1993): 65-76..
Kuebrich, David. "Melville's Doctrine of Assumptions: The Hidden Ideology of Capitalist
    Production in 'Bartleby'." New England Quarterly 69.3 (Sep 1996): 381-406.
Newman, L., ed.  A Reader's Guide to the Short Stories of Herman Melville, 1986.
 
 

Other Websites to Visit:

http://www.melville.org/

http://www.gonzaga.edu/faculty/campbell/enl311/bartle.htm

A lengthy chapter from a book called Genius Ignored:
http://www.serve.com/Lucius/Melville.index.html

The beginning of a dissertation entitled Melville and Irony: http://student.ecok.edu/acaddept/english/faculty/lrp/hmpref.html
 

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Creada: 22/02/2000 Última Actualización: 17/01/2001