The story “Bartleby the Scrivener” written by Melville, is a short story that takes place in an office on Wall Street in New York City. In the office a lawyer runs a small law practice, and this lawyer is also the narrator of the story. The entire story is told from the office from the narrator’s perspective. The narrator begins the story by describing himself as an elderly man who has seen many odd scriveners but none as odd as Bartleby. He doesn’t begin to describe Bartleby yet though; he instead describes his other employees Turkey and Nippers.
The narrator describes each one of his employees with much detail as if he had studied them before. For example he describes his employee Turkey in this quote with great detail, “Not that he was absolutely idle, or averse to business then; far from it. The difficulty was, he was apt to be altogether too energetic. There was a strange, inflamed, flurried, flighty recklessness of activity about him. He would be incautious in dipping his pen into his inkstand. All his blots upon my documents, were dropped there after twelve o’clock, meridian.” This quote describes the first employee the Narrator brings up, Turkey. Turkey is about the same age as the narrator. Turkey is described as a good morning worker but struggles as an afternoon worker. The lawyer notes that he is clumsy and has a bad temper in the afternoon. By creating this unusual character Melville catches the reader’s attention even before introducing Bartleby. The narrator tries to help Turkey by offering him only morning jobs but Turkey insists that he’s alright with the schedule he has. The narrator lets this go but decides to simply give Turkey unimportant documents to work on. Turkey’s relationship with the narrator seems to stay consistent throughout the entire story. This is mostly due to the fact that the narrator is distracted by Bartleby’s oddness.
The narrator first came into contact with Bartleby when he needed more help in his law firm. The lawyer hired Bartleby and was instantly impressed with his hardworking attitude. Melville created a unique theme by making the narrator incredibly impressed with Bartleby before changing everything around. As for example this quote reveals the narrators first thoughts of Bartleby, “At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents. There was no pause for digestion. He ran a day and night line, copying by sun-light and by candle-light. I should have been quite delighted with his application, had be been cheerfully industrious. But he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically.”Bartleby would work throughout the day and even into the night without any question or hesitation, as the quote says. The relationship between the narrator and Bartleby began to collapse though; when one day Bartleby decides to not do any work. The narrator decides to not scold Bartleby because of how much shock he’s in from Bartleby’s sudden change in attitude.
From this point onward Bartleby continues to become more and more useless as a worker in the lawyer’s office. Bartleby doesn’t just stop working for the lawyer but begins to stop eating. This is an interesting theme that Melville creates by making Bartleby go to such extremes. He does this by making Bartleby stop functioning completely in every way possible. Melville does this by creating a man who doesn’t eat, talk, or even live anywhere.
The narrator is so amazed at his employee’s lack of motivation to do anything he doesn’t ask him to leave. The narrator at this point is actually entertained by Bartleby since he has never seen something like this before. The narrators relationship with Bartleby has changed dramatically now from employer to employee, to employer to entertainer. Anything Bartleby doesn’t do simply amazes the narrator but he begins to become more concerned for his well being.
Even though the narrator is concerned for Bartleby he still tries to make him leave his office eventually after many complaints from the other workers. This does not work though, because Bartleby plainly refuses to leave. Bartleby proves to be a very stubborn character with no motive at all in this story. Melville created him so it was impossible to reason with him in any way possible. This is what creates Melville’s unique theme in his short story.
The narrator’s thoughts on Bartleby changed dramatically from an everyday hard worker to an odd daily entertainer. This change in the relationship between the narrator and Bartleby was an interesting theme chosen by Melville. It exploit how Bartleby refused to be a working member of society and how the narrator did not understand this. The narrator was entertained by his own confusion which made the theme created by Melville much more interesting to the reader.
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