Bartleby the Scrivener
Herman Melville's story "Bartleby the Scrivener" is an alternately comedic and tragic look at the relationship between an employer and his employee, and examining how this relationship plays out reveals the complexities of managing a workplace and the sometimes overlooked nuances of the power dynamic present in this kind of relationship.
The character of Bartleby represents the inversion of the narrator's own character and ideals, because he offers what is essentially the perfect challenge to the narrator's pride in both his business acumen and self-assured sense of generosity. The major players in the story are Bartleby and the narrator, although the minor characters of Nippers, Turkey, and Ginger Nut serve to explain and partially justify the narrator's decision to hire Bartleby in the first place. The fact that Nippers is never productive in the morning and Turkey is never productive in the afternoon leads the narrator to choose Bartleby to fill the position suddenly made available by the narrator's increased business, because he believes that "a man of so singularly sedate an aspect [...] might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper of Turkey, and the fiery one of Nippers" (Melville, 1853, p. 549). While the narrator is not at all likable or sympathetic at the beginning of the story, due to the fact that he spends an inordinate amount of time puffing up his own reputation, Bartleby initially appears in a sympathetic light, portrayed as "pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn!" ( p. 546-7, 549). However, this initial impression changes as the...
" Bartleby's physical appearance -- his pale visage, his lean form, his tattered clothing and his "flute-like" voice -- conveys a man who is like the living dead. Indeed, the narrator discovers that Bartleby has been sleeping in the office. Bartleby is like a man who is haunting the building. He only speaks when he is summoned; he has no discernible emotional reactions, and he floats around the office as if
Bartleby and Akaky: A Struggle against Social Tide Herman Melville's Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street is a story reminiscent of the emergence of nineteenth century white-collar working class in most cities in the United States and specifically New York. Melville paints a picture of "Bartleby" a tragi-comic fable about a passive man, invisible to the society and who responds to his condition in the most unusual way leading to
Bartleby, The Scrivener Although Melville's story of the scrivener would ostensibly seem to be about the mysterious stranger named Bartleby, it can more accurately be described as a story about the effect that Bartleby had on those around him, and particularly upon the anonymous lawyer narrating the story. The narrator presents himself as an unremarkable gentleman, a lawyer and employer who, in retrospection of his sixty years of life describes himself as
Bartleby the Scrivener Since the publication of Herman Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" literary critics have written countless papers examining various themes and motifs that they determine are present in the text. There is obviously the theme of the monetary and the lower or working classes vs. The middle and upper. Also there is the question of who is in charge, employer or employee. What is most interesting is the question of
After all, he was performing his main tack quite well and in a continuous manner. The second time to refuses to perform a task his boss gives him happens to be in front of all the other employees. This new situation commands immediate reaction from his part, because his very authority is questioned. By not taking action, he could open a chain of reaction and insubordination from the rest
Not having a will, becomes thus the only possibility to attain freedom and this thesis present in Schopenhauer's thinking seems to have protruded into Melville's convictions when he wrote the short tale. Norberg, Peter. "On Teaching Bartleby." Leviathan. Vol. 2. Issue 2(p. 87-99) Norbert presents the line of events that led to him choosing a particular method of teaching Bartleby the Scrivener to his students. The revelation of the importance of
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