Not long after Bartleby starts at the office, the narrator asks him to join in a group reading to check some of the copies he’s done. Bartleby simply replies with his patent “I prefer not to” and retreats back to his own little office area. The boss tries to get him to come around by saying, “These are your own copies we are about to examine. It is labor saving to you because one examination will answer for your four papers. It is common usage. Every copyist is bound to help examine his copy” (8). The narrator tries to explain to Bartleby why he should take part in the reading, hoping that he would see that it’s the norm for any office member to participate. To discuss and/or explain that the activity is common practice (i.e. everyone does it) is a good first attempt at convincing. It gets straight to the point without outright putting the blame on the …show more content…
The lawyer has little choice but to dismiss the scrivener, but he does it in the most roundabout way possible, saying,
“After you have removed your things from these offices, Bartleby, you will of course lock the door—since every one is now gone for the day but you—and if you please, slip your key underneath the mat, so that I may have it in the morning. I shall not see you again; so good-bye to you. If hereafter in your new place of abode I can be of any service to you, do not fail to advise me by letter. Good-bye, Bartleby, and fare you well. (18)
Having decided that he can take no more and Bartleby must go, the lawyer adopts an assuming air in believing that Bartleby will for sure listen to him and leave. I believe that he tries to act assuming so that Bartleby will feel obligated to leave. It’s what is expected of him, and he has been officially dismissed. Most normal people would feel uncomfortable if they remained behind and were forced to face those who fired them. Then again, Bartleby is not one of those “normal”
The short story ended with the narrator discovering that Bartleby worked at a Dead Letter Office, which provides information about Bartleby that can further explain his behaviors. However, in the film during the narrator’s first encounter with Bartleby he read his résumé, which stated that he was employed at a Dead Letter Office. In their last encounter the narrator discovered the letter of recommendation that he gave Bartleby and referred to it as a dead letter. In the story Bartleby died, in the story in jail, but in the film it occurred under the freeway making the adaptation not so faithful. The director also included numerous sexual-based conversations and scenes that were not in the story, and he excluded the Biblical references that were made in the
This passage gives the impression that Bartleby had no choice in the matter but rather he was conformed into a set task with no deviation from it. As the story furthers, Bartleby demonstrates an extraordinary inclination to not do certain things. In many ways, Bartleby is an embodiment of Melville himself. Both Bartleby and Melville were writers of sorts and they were both proficient at what they did until came a period where they decide to stop doing what was asked of them and instead did what they preferred to. Melville changed his style of writing novels and stories resulting in backlash from society. Bartleby changed his office behavior and often said, “I would prefer not to” to given tasks which angered his co-workers. Eventually, Bartleby and Melville had reached a point in their life where they decided to
After reading “Bartleby, The Scrivener” and watching the movie, the immediate thing you catch is the setting. The setting between the book and the movie are completely different. “Bartleby is a clerk in a Wall Street law firm. He is a quiet, respectable, competent scribe who, at first, seems to be a model employee. He is more productive than the other clerks. He works hard. He seldom takes breaks. But there is something odd about him.” (Lantos). This explains a good portion of who Bartleby is in the book, that he is a diligent and steadfast worker. The movie also explains that Bartleby is a great
Bartleby, the Scrivener, is a story written by Herman Mellvile. It is about a successful lawyer who hires a homeless, depressed man named Bartleby to transcribe documents for him. The narrator of this story is the lawyer. Throughout the story, Bartleby declines at his job, saying he would “prefer not” to perform his duties. Eventually, the lawyer learns about Bartleby’s homelessness by discovering he has been living in the office. After a while, the lawyer feels it would be best for the business to just move to a different office, so he does. To his surprise, Bartleby follows him there. Bartleby ends up getting arrested and eventually dies while in prison. This story has great meaning to it. The main character displays a great character of
Wasserstrom also considers the fact that in many situations lawyers have the optional ability to remove themselves form issues that may contradict their individual ethics. "Having once agreed to represent the client, the lawyer in under an obligation to do his or her best to defend that person at trial." With in the process of contracting a lawyer, the lawyer has the option of acceptance or refusal of representing the client. Therefore the lawyer can asses the case and decide if it violates any of their own individual ethics.
As the story continues, his sympathy for Bartleby’s predicament develops. Throughout paragraph 90, the lawyer discovers that Bartleby resides in the office and feels pity towards how Bartleby sustains such “ miserable friendlessness and loneliness.” Readers can acknowledge how the Lawyer struggles with maintaining the changing attitudes he feels towards Bartleby: “melancholy merge into fear” and “pity into repulsion” (137). The Lawyer intended to fire Bartleby for his refusal to work, but did not, for he feared of being portrayed as a “villain” (138). According to Jack Getman, the Lawyer has “become a different, more appealing person, one who is more responsive to the needs and rights of his workers” (Getman 738). It is evident that the Lawyer undergoes many changes in the interest of Bartleby.
The lawyer portrays his self-interest when he moves his office and abandons Bartleby, due to his negative affect on the business. Because Bartleby continues to annoyingly dawdle around the old office, the lawyer attempts to rid the building of Bartleby, for the lawyer is "fearful of being exposed" (1201) and criticized by the public. Clearly, the lawyer speaks to Bartleby in hopes of relieving himself from any
At this point, Lt. Kaffee wishes to find other representation for his clients because he holds the right to withdraw from the case if his clients refuse to cooperate. After a night of thinking it over, he decides to represent them and enters a plea for not guilty at their arraignment. That brings us into the trial, which is called a general court marshal.
Specifically, by using the city and, of course, the office, he shows us just how alone we can be even when we are surrounded by others. We are, in deed, a product of our surroundings. As mentioned, the walls and other barriers that separated or surrounded Bartleby impacted him greatly. The atmosphere of the office is absent of friendless and a sense of community. In fact, the employer even recalled this thought he had; he stated that “what miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed” (1495). This conveys the distance and incompatible relationship between him and Bartleby. It was as if Bartleby was an estranged employee in a insensitive network. Although humanity is profoundly alienated from one another, we are somehow connected; yet, we are controlled by imperceptive forces that are beyond our
First, the caring personality of the lawyer is portrayed when Bartleby did not accept the help that he was offered by the lawyer . Bartleby when he tried to make Bartleby open up and tell him his problems. In the phrase “Ah Bartleby! Ah Humanity!” the narrator uses Bartleby to present humanity. The phrase is a soliloquy from the narrator enquiring why Bartleby refused help. Bartleby is described as a hard working individual but refuses to smile at work or communicte with people at work (5). No-one knew why Bartleby did not smile or communicate with any of his co-workers, and that behavior continues throughout the story. His reponses to the questions that he was asked was, “I would prefer not to,” (14) was distubing to his boss. The reader sees the
Bartleby’s behavior is considered a deviation from the norm because of the conforming behaviors of the other scriveners, Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut. As scriveners, they listen to their employer, the lawyer, and do as they were told. Their actions and reactions build the idea of “society” and how a scrivener should behave. Turkey is “a short, pursy Englishman” that is not far from sixty years old who drinks on the job which makes his work in the afternoon ineffective. Nippers is an ambitious fellow whose impatience stems from the mundane duties of being a “mere copyist” and has trouble working in the morning due to his stomach issues. The last
Lastly, the last employee The Lawyer describes is Bartleby. According to the Lawyer, Bartle is, “one of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the original sources, and in his case those are very small” (Melville 1). To him, Bartleby is the most interesting scriveners of all time. Bartleby joins the office after getting hired when he saw an ad placed by the Lawyer, which at that time needed extra help in his office. In the
To copy someone else’s work nonstop all day every day would get really tiring, but the lawyer says Bartleby gorges himself on copying papers and documents. Usually when someone gorges him or herself in something, it is something that they like or enjoy. In Bartleby’s case this is what he does, not because he enjoys it but because it’s all he has. This is evident when the lawyer says, “He ran a day and night line, copying by sun-light and by candle-light.” (108) This job is all he had in his life.
The last paragraph can't be left without analysis; it's where a new mystery was revealed. It is the one thing the lawyer had discovered about Bartleby; the rumor that Bartleby once worked in the Dead Letter office, and was fired in an administrative shake-up. "Dead letters! Does it not sound like dead men? On errands of life, these letters speed to death " The lawyer wonders whether it was the lonely depressing job, reading letters meant for people now gone or dead, which drove Bartleby into his final stillness beneath a prison-yard tree
The narrator went to great lengths to avoid a confrontation. When Bartleby refused to leave the office after being fired, the narrator chose to move his office to a different location instead of removing the eccentric man by force. The narrator informs the reader of this idea when he says, “ No more then. Since he will not quit me, I must quit him. I will change my offices.” (2422) By doing so, the narrator displays just how far man is sometimes willing to go to avoid conflict. The final theme is man’s desire to have a free conscience. Melville reveals this theme through the actions of the narrator as well as the new tenants of the office. The narrator attempts to appease his conscience by giving Bartleby money above his wages when he fired him. The new tenants of the office try to put the responsibility of dealing with Bartleby back on the narrator, but they are denied and eventually have the man removed from the premises by law officers. Herman Melville uses the actions and reactions of the characters in “Bartleby the Scrivener” to disclose three important themes, alienation, man’s desire to avoid conflict, and man’s desire to keep a free conscience. In doing so, he gives us an inside look into the workings of the human mind. The reader is left with the impression that all people, including lawyers, have compassion for other humans, and at some point, that