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Bartleby, the scrivener This story of Wall Street is strange and absurd from the moment the character of Bartleby enters the story and until he leaves it. Therefore, we presume that this Bartleby is this element, which makes the story strange and absurd. In fact, he is strange and absurd. Before he enters the story, nothing seems to be unusual.
Three characters, of which one is a narrator and the owner of the chambers and three others are his employees, live the ordinary life of Wall Street: they work and then they leave their office and go home. Every one of them has the character, which the author describes with the help of nicknames: Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut. They all have their own weak points and strong points. Turkey is good before noon and unbearable after 12 oclock. The author gives a detailed description of all the peculiarities of Turkeys personality. The descriptive language here is rich in similes: Turkeys face blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals and it is also compared with the sun: In the morning, one might say, his face was of a fine florid hue, but after twelve oclock, meridian his dinner hours blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals; and continued blazing but, as it were, with a gradual wane till 6 oclock, P.
M. or thereabouts, after which I saw no more of the proprietor of the face, which gaining its meridian with the sun, seemed to set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the following day, with the like regularity and undiminished glory. (Melville, 6) In fact, Turkeys face is a good indicator of his mood. After twelve oclock Turkeys face flamed with augmented blazonry, as if channel coal had been heaped on anthracite. However, as Turkey was in many ways a most valuable person to the narrator, and all the time before twelve oclock, was the quickest, steadiest creature too, accomplishing a great deal of work in a style not easy to be matched for these reasons, the lawyer was willing to overlook his failings.
We see that in spite of all his drawbacks, he is still a good worker. That is why the narrator prefers to put up with his faults. Nippers is very much like Turkey: he is unbearable before noon and is good after 12 oclock. The description of Nippers is also detailed, according to the narrator, Nippers is the victim of two evil powers ambition and indigestion.
We can see his ambition in the way how he is not satisfied with the duties of a mere copyist. He would like to write original legal documents but he only copies them. The indigestion shows in his discontent with the height of a table where he worked. This table is a metaphorical symbol of Nippers character. He is dissatisfied with his life but he cannot change anything in it. He is a mere copyist and he will never be a boss.
Therefore, whatever he places his table, he is never satisfied with its height. Nevertheless, we see that in spite of all his failings and annoyances he caused to the narrator, Nippers, like his co-worker Turkey, was very useful man to the lawyer. The conclusion we make is the same Nippers is a good worker and a good accomplishment to Turkey. In fact, they two accomplish each other: Turkey is good in the first half of the day and Nippers is good in the second one.
Ginger Nut is the third character of minor importance. Nevertheless, the author pays attention to him and his personality. Sent by his father to learn the lawyers business, Ginger Nut indulges in eating nuts: Indeed, to this quick-witted youth the whole noble science of the law was contained in a nut-shell. (Melville, 14) This is a metaphor: the entire science is contained in the nutshell for Ginger Nut. He cracks the nuts as if he cracked the science.
The author describes the narrators personality with his own words. The narrator tells us who he is and what he does in life. He also tells about his likes and dislikes. We see that the snug business is the narrators priority and he does not like when somebody prevents him from doing it. The narrator and Bartleby are two characters who are opposed to each other.
Neither Turkey nor Nippers plays such an important role in this contraposition. It is a matter of the narrator and Bartleby only. However, the narrator sometimes addresses the latter two or even minor character Ginger Nut. However, it is only the narrator who makes decisions and nobody else.
Turkey and Nippers give him advice on what they would do with Bartleby according to their mood and the time of day. The narrator never follows their advice. He does what his conscience and common sense tells him to do. Now we return to our definition of absurd and strange.
The major theme is developed by the advent of Bartleby. Before his advent, nothing seems strange or unusual. But from his first steps, Bartleby perplexes the narrator and us, readers. There have been many opinions among critics as to Bartleby and his symbolic meaning: The biographical interpretation of Bartleby usually not only compares Melville with the scrivener who prefers not to copy, but also draws parallels with such details of the story as Bartleby's eyestrain and Melville's eye trouble, the dead letters and Melville's unpopular manuscripts, and even with the flames that consume the post office letters and the fire "that gutted the quarters of his publisher, Harper's, in the year the story was written, destroying the plates of all his novels, and almost all the printed copies of his books. " Other biographical interpretations have also been offered.
Bartleby is no longer Melville, but one of Melville's acquaintances, such as Eli James Murdock Fly, an unhappy scrivener, or George Adler, confined in an asylum because of severe agoraphobia. (Ago, 27) It is the matter of individual choice to think that Bartleby is a new Christ or just a schizophrenic. In our opinion, Bartleby can not be judged as a human being. Either it was not Melville's intention or on the contrary, it was made deliberately, but we do not see Bartleby as a real person. He is a fancy, an image, an element that makes everything look absurd and strange, but he is not a real man.
Turkey is real, Nippers is alive, and the narrator and all other minor characters are real people. They have in them everything that humans possess: weak points and strong points, bad and good. They are human. Bartleby is not human. Although he eats (the narrator found out that he does), it does not prove he is human.
He sleeps too. However, nobody saw him doing these things. It is only assumption. However, be Bartleby a ghost or a real man, it does not change his meaning. Bartleby is an element of absurdity and with his help the author makes the situation absurd. Bartleby does not do the things all the scriveners do, he only copies the documents.
The narrator could resign himself to it but then Bartleby stops doing even this work. This is strange and absurd. He refuses to take money from the narrator. He refuses to eat. He has only one answer to all these questions: I prefer not to. We cannot understand this and neither can the narrator.
He tries different strategies with Bartleby: he gives him money, he asks him, he begs him. However, all attempts are in vain and Bartleby continues with his absurd actions. Finally, with his actions Bartleby makes the narrator to flee from his own office! Moreover, he prefers to stay and he stays in an empty office. Then he is a nuisance for other people who rent this office. At last, he is in prison, this thing should have happened long before but the authors intention was, in our opinion, to make the story as absurd as it could be made.
In prison, Bartleby refuses to eat and dies. Such an end provokes the words that end the story: Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity! But what is the idea that stands behind these words?
To accuse humanity for the existence and death of Bartleby? But humanity tried to save Bartleby in all possible ways and it was only his decision to die. We prefer to think it is a moral of the story. But the meaning of it can be different. It is up to everybody to decide who is right: Bartleby or humanity. Our opinion is that Bartleby died as he lived absurdly and strangely.
He acted according to his own principles and this decision was taken by him only. Strange and absurd as he was, Bartleby though made many people to think and to doubt whether they live, as they should. Many thought that they could be more kind to their neighbor and they could love more their neighbor. In this aspect, Bartleby is a combined type of our neighbor whom we should love and forgive his strangest actions. Everybody could ask himself a simple question: what would I do, if I were a narrator of this story, what would be my actions and my feelings? The answer to this simple question is difficult and it will be different for everybody.
My answer would be: I love my neighbor but I am not ready to put up with all his whims. I think Bartleby is just a fiction and not a human being. However, even if he were a human, a person that I know, I would act exactly as the narrator of this story acted, except that I would put Bartleby in prison or mental hospital much earlier, for in my opinion he was really ill. Works Cited Melville, Herman. Bartleby, the Scrivener. New York, 1853.
Bartleby. com. 1 May, 2004 < web >. Ago, Nicholas. "Bartleby's Lawyer on Trial. " Arizona Quarterly 28 (1972): 27 - 38. 2 May, 2004 < web >. Billy, Ted. "Eros and Thanatos in 'Bartleby', " Arizona Quarterly 31 (1975): 21 - 32. 2 May, 2004 < web >.
Building, W. J. "Commentary on 'Bartleby'. " Arizona Quarterly 37 (1981): 347 - 54. 2 May, 2004 < web >. Hoag, Ronald Wesley. "The Corpse in the Office: The Example of Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street'. " ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 38 (Second Quarter 1992): 119 - 42. 2 May, 2004. < web >. Hunt, Marvin. "That's the Word: Turning Tongues and Heads in 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'. "ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance 40 (Fourth Quarter 1994): 275 - 92. 2 May, 2004 < web >.
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