Bartleby the Scrivener

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"Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a short story by Herman Melville. The story first appeared, anonymously, in Putnam's Magazine in two parts. The first part appeared in November 1853, with the conclusion published in December 1853. It was reprinted in Melville's The Piazza Tales in 1856 with minor textual alterations. The work is said to have been inspired, in part, by Melville's reading of Emerson, and some have pointed to specific parallels to Emerson's essay, "The Transcendentalist." The story has been adapted into several films: one in 1970, starring Paul Scofield, and another in 2001, starring Crispin Glover.

1 Plot
2 Discussion
3 Influence
4 External links

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The narrator of the story is a barrister with offices on Wall Street in New York City. He does "a snug business among rich men's bonds and mortgages and title-deeds," and describes himself as a prudent, methodical "man of assumptions". He has three employees: "First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut," each of whom is described at some length. Turkey and Nippers are copyists or scriveners while Ginger Nut, a boy of twelve, does odd jobs. Turkey, an old Englishman, is a model of efficiency in the morning, but becomes insolent and sloppy after his lunchtime beer; on the other hand, Nippers, an ambitious young man, is restless and irritable in the morning, but works well in the afternoon. The narrator notes these eccentricities, but excuses them. When his business increases, he decides to hire a third scrivener, and Bartleby responds to his advertisement and arrives at the office, "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!"

At first Bartleby copies diligently, but refuses to perform any other duties, telling his perplexed boss "I would prefer not to" when asked, for example, to help the other scriveners proofread a document. Later, he stops working altogether, repeating only "I would prefer not to" when pressed for an explanation. (Although many people err in the wording here, it should be noted that Bartleby never actually refuses; he just states he would prefer not to. At one point, when his boss declares angrily "You will not?" he gently replies "I prefer not.")

The narrator, torn between pity and exasperation, also discovers that Bartleby apparently has no home or friends, and lives in the office. Reluctant to dismiss the man, but nettled by what he perceives as his "pallid haughtiness", he tries to persuade him to resume work, or to at least explain himself. Bartleby, however, only repeats his mantra, and the narrator eventually fires him. Bartleby, however, continues to haunt the premises, causing the lawyer considerable embarrassment. Unwilling to have him arrested, the narrator finally moves his offices to escape his presence.

The new tenants, however, soon track him down to complain of the strange man he left behind. Although he protests that Bartleby is nothing to him, he agrees to go speak with him. During the interview, he tries once more to help the young man, even inviting him to be a guest in his own home. Bartleby, however, replies "No: at present, I prefer not to make any change at all." He will not even accept money from the narrator. The new tenants have Bartleby arrested for vagrancy, and he is sent to The Tombs.

When the narrator visits the prison, Bartleby tells him "I know you--and I want nothing to say to you." Nevertheless, he tries to cheer him, and gives the "grub man" a sum of money to provide him with better meals. However, Bartleby "prefers not" to eat, and slowly starves, finally expiring just prior to another visit from the narrator. At the end, the lawyer speculates that Bartleby's rumored previous career in the dead letter office in Washington, D.C., which was sad and depressing, drove him to his bizarre behavior.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Discussion

Many interpretations have been offered for this enigmatic story. The simplest explanation is that Bartleby is suffering from a personality disorder, and Melville is giving us a sympathetic portrait of mental illness (modern critics have diagnosed both autism and schizophrenia). The narrator, although he thrice denies Bartleby, recognises that he is in some way afflicted and is compelled by a sense of their common humanity to try to help him. Others see Bartleby's work environment--the awful tedium of the task, the isolation behind a screen, and the window facing a brick wall--as the cause of his problems. Turkey and Nippers, who have abundant vitality, have found ways to cope (with alcohol and ill-temper, respectively); Bartleby has not.

This story is also often interpreted in Marxist terms. In this view, the narrator usually fares rather badly, becoming a smug little man made comfortable by a system that ruthlessly exploits the proletariat. Bartleby, one of his victims, is a forlorn rebel, and his constantly reiterated "I would prefer not to" represents his rejection of 19th-century capitalism.

In all these interpretations, one of the most interesting aspects of the story is the disruption Bartleby causes by politely refusing to do anything at all. His employer, "staggered in his own plainest faith", gets so angry at one point that he actually fears he might kill Bartleby; however, he finds himself unable, as Nippers suggests, to "kick him out of the office." Later, Bartleby's motionless presence sends the other tenants of the building into near-panic. In the end, unable to dislodge Bartleby in any decorous way, they send for the police.

[edit] Influence

"Bartleby the Scrivener" is among the most famous of American short stories. It has been considered a precursor to existentialist and absurdist literature even though at the time that this story was published it was not very popular. "Bartleby" touches on many of the themes extant in the work of Franz Kafka, particularly in The Trial and "A Hunger Artist". However, there exists nothing to indicate that the German-language writer was at all familiar with Melville, who was largely forgotten until after Kafka's death.

Albert Camus cites Melville (explicitly over Kafka) as one of his key influences in a personal letter to Liselotte Dieckmann printed in the French Review in 1998.