Overview
Herman Melville’s 1856 short story “Bartleby, The Scrivener” is narrated by a cautious Wall Street lawyer who hires a quiet copyist, Bartleby, whose passive refusals unravel office order and end in tragedy.
Setting and Narrator
- Wall Street law office; second-floor chambers hemmed by blank walls.
- Narrator: elderly, prudent chancery lawyer; values ease, method, and peace.
- Office divided by ground-glass folding doors; privacy via a green screen.
Staff Portraits
- Turkey: elderly, industrious mornings; rash, blotting, noisy afternoons; flamboyantly red face; slovenly dress.
- Nippers: young, irritable mornings (indigestion/ambition); calmer afternoons; adjusts desk obsessively.
- Ginger Nut: 12-year-old errand boy; supplies ginger-nuts; desk filled with nut shells.
- Their tempers offset: Turkey volatile after noon; Nippers volatile before noon.
Bartleby’s Arrival and Work
- Appears pallid, neat, forlorn; hired as a copyist.
- At first, writes prodigiously day and night; silent, mechanical.
- Assigned desk by dim side-window; screened from view but within call.
“I would prefer not to”: The Refusal Pattern
- Refuses to compare copies: “I would prefer not to.” Calm, unwavering.
- Extends refusals to errands, messages, and later all writing.
- Passive resistance disarms the narrator; evokes pity, irritation, and fascination.
- Phrase “prefer” infects office speech, including the narrator’s.
Discovery of Bartleby’s Solitude
- Found occupying the office on Sunday; evidence of living there.
- Subsists on ginger-nuts; no reading, socializing, or outings observed.
- Narrator’s response oscillates between charity, fear, and repulsion.
Attempts to Resolve the Situation
- Gentle inquiries into Bartleby’s history meet refusal.
- Offers money, assistance, relocation; Bartleby declines or ignores.
- Formal notice to leave in six days; Bartleby remains unmoved.
- Narrator ultimately moves offices to avoid him.
After the Move: Building Conflict
- New tenants and landlord confront the narrator; Bartleby haunts stairs.
- Private interview: narrator offers various jobs and even home shelter; Bartleby declines all.
- Landlord has Bartleby removed to the Tombs as a vagrant.
Imprisonment and Death
- In jail yard, Bartleby stands facing a high wall; refuses engagement.
- Narrator arranges better food via the “grub-man,” Mr. Cutlets; Bartleby declines to dine.
- Later found lying against the wall; dies “with kings and counselors.”
Rumor and Reflection
- Rumored past: clerk in the Dead Letter Office, dismissed with administration change.
- Dead letters as emblem of hopelessness: unclaimed aid, pardon, and love consumed by flames.
- Final lament links Bartleby’s pallid hopelessness to human condition.
Character and Dynamic Summary
| Character | Role | Traits | Behavior Pattern | Arc/Outcome |
|---|
| Narrator (Lawyer) | Employer, first-person narrator | Prudent, conflict-averse, charitable yet vain | Vacillates between compassion, irritation, and retreat | Moves offices; tries to aid Bartleby; witnesses his death |
| Bartleby | Scrivener | Pale, silent, steadfast, passive | “I would prefer not to”; withdraws from all tasks; lives in office | Jailed as vagrant; refuses food; dies |
| Turkey | Copyist | Morning industrious; afternoon rash | Blots, noise after noon; comic bluster | Remains employed; foil to Nippers |
| Nippers | Copyist | Ambitious, dyspeptic | Morning irritability; desk fussing; afternoon calmer | Remains employed; suggests severity |
| Ginger Nut | Errand boy | Quick, cheerful | Fetches ginger-nuts; observes lunacy | Minor observer-role |
| Landlord/Lawyers | External pressures | Practical, impatient | Demand removal; call police | Trigger imprisonment |
| Grub-man (Cutlets) | Prison provider | Coarse, eager | Offers dinners, civility for pay | Reports Bartleby’s non-dining |
Themes and Motifs
- Passive resistance vs. authority: preference as quiet defiance.
- Isolation in modern commerce: walls, cistern-like office, dead-wall reveries.
- Charity’s limits: pity turning to repulsion; prudence vs. moral duty.
- Mechanization of work: scrivener’s mechanical labor and soul-weariness.
- Language contagion: “prefer” permeates office, altering thought.
- Dead letters as metaphor: messages of life diverted to death.
Key Plot Milestones
- Hiring of Bartleby; initial prodigious copying.
- First refusal to examine copies; pattern spreads.
- Discovery of office habitation on Sunday.
- Permanent renunciation of copying.
- Ultimatum; money offered; Bartleby unmoved.
- Office relocation; Bartleby remains at old site.
- Arrest and transfer to the Tombs.
- Refusal to eat; death in jail yard.
Action Items
- None specified; narrative concludes with Bartleby’s death and a rumor.
Decisions
- Narrator decides to tolerate Bartleby’s refusals initially.
- Decides to dismiss him with pay and aid; then to move offices.
- Decides not to press charges; later supports leniency at the Tombs.