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…...

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References

Melville, H. (1853). Bartleby the scrivener. Putnam's Monthly, 2, 546-557, 609-615. Retrieved

from  http://books.google.com/books?id=Ck8AAAAAYAAJ

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 one who has been "filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best" (3). In keeping with this philosophy, he is a lawyer who is more comfortable with paperwork than with dealing with people, or certainly, with handling confrontations of any magnitude. He is, therefore, more at ease with handling dead paper than living persons.

Throughout the story he repeatedly avoids confrontation in every possible way, but is eventually forced by Bartleby's silence to confront is…...

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Works Cited

Melville, Herman. Bartleby the Scrivener: a Story of Wall Street. 1853. 10/07/02  http://www.bartleby.com/129/ index.html

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. hat is most interesting is the question of responsibility. hat do employees owe their employers and what do those employers owe them in return? Moreover, what do human beings owe one another when they are no longer useful to society? In this particular case, what does Bartleby the Scrivener owe to his boss and what does he then owe to Bartleby whence the young man begins to lose touch with reality?

hen the reader is first introduced to Bartleby, he seems an incomparably hard worker and a real asset…...

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Works Cited

Melville, Herman. "Bartleby the Scrivener." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed.

Nina Baym. New York W.W. Norton, 2002. 2330-355. Print

Not having a will, becomes thus the only possibility to attain feedom and this thesis pesent in Schopenhaue's thinking seems to have potuded into Melville's convictions when he wote the shot tale.
Nobeg, Pete. "On Teaching Batleby." Leviathan. Vol. 2. Issue 2(p. 87-99)

Nobet pesents the line of events that led to him choosing a paticula method of teaching Batleby the Scivene to his students. The evelation of the impotance of the wod "pefeence' in the context of the shot stoy makes Nobet ealize that one of the keys to deciphe the meaning of Batleby's existence in the chambes of the lawye-naato: he usuped the latte's confidence in his manageial capacities.

Nobeg thinks he has found one of the ways to explain pupose of the scivene's pefeences: to challenge authoity, the most poweful fom of authoity: that of public opinion in a democacy.

Pete Nobeg explains why he intoduced Batleby the Scivene in…...

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references: to challenge authority, the most powerful form of authority: that of public opinion in a democracy.

Peter Norberg explains why he introduced Bartleby the Scrivener in two of his courses. The major motivation consists in the understanding of the way literature and the form of bringing it to the public in different ages contributed to the formation of public opinion. Norberg draws a parallel between the contemporary politics and the formation of public opinion and the way literature with "Bartleby the Scrivener" as a conclusive example, contributes to both formation and keeping the mind open to any change.

Norberg considers the whole picture that the technological, social, political and cultural changes of the nineteenth century created and points out to his students the importance of understanding the literature written in this period though the lenses of these changes.

The context Norberg presents Melville's short story is taking into account among others Thoreau's Walden "as a critical response to this progressive model of liberal state that is implicit in Emersonian individualism" (93). The parallel between human resources management in a capitalist democratic society and the relationship between Bartleby and his employer is destined by Norberg to give birth to all kinds of assumptions form the part of his students.

Bartleby the Scrivener, By Herman Melville
The protagonist in this story by Herman Melville is the narrator, and Bartleby, a man of his own mind and a strong mind it is, is the antagonist. The narrator shows a disturbing lack of good judgment by coddling Bartleby, and begging Bartleby to cooperate. The narrator in this story represents the lack of human understanding in the business world of Melville's era. The thesis of this paper is that the narrator is playing the role of the stuffed shirt all Street kind of man who was typical of this era, and the narrator, while seemingly fair and reasonable, is totally out of touch with how to manage employees and how to deal with diversity and indifference. This would appear to be based on Melville's editorial view of capitalism and all Street per se during this era in the U.S.; in short, Melville is not…...

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Works Cited

Charters, A. (2011). The Story and its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction. Boston, MA:

Bedford / St. Martin's.

He later finds out that artleby has refused to leave the old office. Eventually, artleby is thrown into jail, where he perishes, after having refused to eat.
Towards the end of the story, the narrator reveals that he has heard a rumor that artleby used to work in a dead letter office - a job that naturally would have been crushing to someone of such a melancholic disposition as artleby. This perhaps explains his inability to cope with the external world. He becomes so closed in on himself that he eventually perishes.

Melville's story thus unveils in a perfectly orderly, chronological fashion in order to express two men who are at odds with each other. While the narrator is representative of the conventional world, artleby is emblematic of the dark forces that occasionally engulf humanity. Only through the narrator's empathy for artleby is he ultimately redeemed.

ibliography

Melville, Herman. "artleby the Scrivener." Retrieved…...

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Bibliography

Melville, Herman. "Bartleby the Scrivener." Retrieved 23 January 2008 at  http://www.bartleby.com/129/ .

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 of the team. He decides to ask them for their opinion, before making any sudden decision. They respond according to their own disposition and the moment in the day. Still before noon, Turkey is still in a good disposition and suggests clemency, Nipper is in a bad mood and suggest that he fires him. The voice of innocence, Ginger Nut, expresses his conviction that Bartleby is mentally disturbed. These seem to be like voices of the narrator's alter ego. He…...

Fiction Analysis Essay Analysis of "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville
"Bartleby the Scrivener" remains one of the best-known fictional works by Melville. Analysts describe the art as arguably among the most challenging to interpret compared to other writers' works. Over time, numerous critics have differed about the interpretations (Fisher, 59-79; Kaplan and Kloss, 63-79; Stempel and Stillians, 268-82).
Only a small section agrees on the interpretations' trajectory; others completely fail to find harmony in their schools of thought. The subject covered in "Bartleby the Scrivener" was far ahead of time as at the time, depression and job dissatisfaction among the middle class were rare subjects. Additionally, the concepts surrounding the importance of Wall Street in Americans' lives were not as pronounced. It was symbolic because Bartleby presented a section of people who openly rejected some employers' tasks while remaining in those businesses.
Before getting deep into the themes discussed in "Bartleby the Scrivener,"…...

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Works cited

Fisher, Marvin. \\"\\'Bartleby,\\' Melville\\'s Circumscribed Scrivener,\\" The Southern Review, Vol. X, No. 1, Winter, 1974, pp. 59-79.

Kaplan, Morton, and Robert Kloss. \\"Fantasy of Passivity: Melville\\'s \\'Bartleby the Scrivener\\',\\" in The Unspoken Motive: A Guide to Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism, Free Press, 1973, pp. 63-79.

Melville, Herman. \\"Bartleby the Scrivener.\\" Melville\\'s Short Novels (2002): 3-34.

Stempel, Daniel, and Bruce M. Stillians. \\"\\'Bartleby the Scrivener\\': A Parable of Pessimism,\\" in Nineteenth-Century Fiction, Vol. 27, No. 1, 1972-1973, pp. 268-82.

Abstract
This article provides an example of a Bartleby the scrivener analysis essay.  It begins with an introduction, which is followed by a brief but detailed summary of the plot of the story.  A short analysis of the story is then provided, with emphasis placed on the theme of determinism vs. free will.  Bartleby is shown as one who is despairingly opposed to the deterministic notions of Calvinism, ingrained in the world around him.  The narrator is shown as one who is baffled by Bartleby’s bold but innocuous assertions while nonetheless drawn into secret sympathy and empathy with Bartleby’s plight.  Main characters, themes and a conclusion follow.



Introduction

Herman Melville published “Bartleby the Scrivener:  A Story of Wall Street” in 1853.  It marked the beginning of his decline as a “respected” American writer.  Actually, his previous novel—Pierre; or, The Ambiguities—precipitated the decline of his literary reputation (already initiated by Moby-Dick, published in 1851). …...

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Resources

Melville, H.  (1853).  Bartleby, the Scrivener:  A Story of Wall Street.  Retrieved from (website not specified)

Stempel, D., & Stillians, B. M. (1972). Bartleby the Scrivener: A parable of pessimism.  Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 27(3), 268-282.

Tally Jr, R. T. (2009). Bartleby, the Scrivener. Bloom’s Literary Themes:  Alienation. New York, NY:  InfoBase Publishing

Isolation in Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener:"
A man alone and isolated in the midst of all Street, the major financial center of the U.S.

Herman Melville's short story of "Bartleby the Scrivener" is a strange, almost plotless work of short fiction which details how the refusal of Bartleby (a law-copier or scrivener) to work causes chaos in the office where he is employed. hile it might be assumed that getting rid of a non-productive employee like Bartleby might be relatively simple, Melville makes it clear that Bartleby's refusal to labor has philosophical as well as economic implications. The other scriveners are shocked by Bartleby's refusal to perform because it contradicts the principles which they have defined their lives by -- namely, the value of hard, laborious, but ultimately meaningless copy work. Bartleby is kind of an existential hero -- despite working in a crowded office, his sense of the pointlessness of his…...

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Works Cited

Melville, Herman. "Bartleby the Scrivener." 1853. Virginia Commonwealth University.

20 Dec 2013. Full text available:  http://www.vcu.edu/engweb/webtexts/bartleby/

The narrator becomes restless in finding a solution to this new and unexpected problem that he encounters. All the knowledge and wisdom he thinks he has gathered in years of practicing an easy, uncomplicated way of acting are of no use to him now. The old order of thongs and his firm beliefs are of no use when he is dealing with the case of Bartleby. Sometimes, the reader could suspect the narrator is actually looking at the scrivener and see his other self. There is a certain degree disobedience in the lawyer, too. After having discovered one Sunday that Bartleby practically lived in the chambers at No_ on Wall Street, the lawyer is still unable to dismiss him from his job and from his life: "I strangely felt something superstitious knocking at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing me for a villain…...

The story is about a relationship, not just the fact Bartleby does not 'care' to work.
Thompson, Graham. "Dead letters!....Dead men?': The rhetoric of the office in Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'. " Journal of American Studies 3-34.(2000): 395-411. Thompson analyzes the relationship between Bartleby and the unnamed narrator as a kind of a romance. hy is the narrator compelled to tell the story of Bartleby, long after it happened? Telling the story becomes a way of 'having' Bartleby and possessing him, the way the narrator cannot in life.

einstock., Jeffrey Andrew. "Doing justice to Bartleby." American Transcendental Quarterly

17.1 (2003): 23-42, 55. einstock analyzes Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" as a kind of postmodern mystery story. Bartleby's reasons are always enigmatic, and the frame tale, that of a 'dead letter' office with an anonymous narrator, intensifies this sense of meaninglessness of life. "The conclusion (or lack thereof) of 'Bartleby' points to the unsettling…...

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Weinstock., Jeffrey Andrew. "Doing justice to Bartleby." American Transcendental Quarterly

17.1 (2003): 23-42, 55. Weinstock analyzes Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener" as a kind of postmodern mystery story. Bartleby's reasons are always enigmatic, and the frame tale, that of a 'dead letter' office with an anonymous narrator, intensifies this sense of meaninglessness of life. "The conclusion (or lack thereof) of 'Bartleby' points to the unsettling realization that every letter is potentially a 'dead letter'-that, as famously proposed by Jacques Derrida, a letter can always not arrive at its destination. Meaning can always go astray. If this is an inherent possibility of language, then "Bartleby" finally raises the question of what it means for meaning to arrive-of what it in fact means for something to mean at all." Bartleby is frightening to the narrator because he highlights the meaninglessness of work, something the narrator believes in.

Zlogar, Richard J. "Body Politics in 'Bartleby': Leprosy, Healing, and Christ-ness in Melville's 'Story of Wall- Street.' Nineteenth-Century Literature. 53. 4 (Mar., 1999): 505-529. The author examines various types of interpretation of the figure of Bartleby in literary criticism: as an artist, a resistor to the capitalist system, a madman, and also as a kind of Christ-figure. The author gives an overview of these various interpretations, with specific attention to Bartleby as a Christ figure. Examines Bartleby as a kind of social leper because of his refusal to work and the physical descriptions of Bartleby by the narrator, such as "cadaverous" and cosigned to "The Tombs" that reinforce religious ideology and the narrator's subconscious guilt.

The narrator was thrown off guard by Bartleby's non-threatening responses for which he did not really know how to handle. He mentions that he is aggravated by Bartleby's passive resistance. it's as though he could accept Bartleby's resistance if it had some fire and passion to it.
As time goes by, Bartleby begins to refuse even more work requests from our narrator. Each refusal becomes more passive and with each refusal, instead of firing him, our narrator says he becomes reconciled to Bartleby. He even tries to negotiate with him on different jobs aside from copying that he was hired to do. This only causes our narrator to reconcile himself even more to Bartleby's odd behavior by trying to become friendly with him and find out about his background. He knows that something is not quite right with Bartleby and he remains perplexed about his passive demeanor. He even at…...

' The narrator clearly believes in this system, which is why he is so determined, until the bitter end, to force Bartleby to work, rather than firing him immediately. The narrator describes himself as an "eminently safe man." because he supports the system of Wall Street without question.
If Bartleby were alive today, he would likely be one of those individuals in a corporate office who refuses to do 'busy work' when there was really no productive work to do, and frustrates his supervisors who demand that lower-level employees keep up the appearance of productivity at all times. However, although Bartleby clearly seems dissatisfied with his current way of life, he inexplicably refuses to try to change his existence. Even when the narrator, lists a series of possible options for work, Bartleby refuses all of them. Bartleby refuses to move, to take meals, and eventually is confined to 'the Tombs' as…...

Bartleby
The Finite and Infinite: An Analysis of Melville's "Bartleby"

Herman Melville's Bartleby is a representational figure of modern malaise. A soul adrift in the universal modern ethos of self-assertion, Bartleby epitomizes the utter emptiness at the heart of it all: for him the American Dream is one he would "prefer not to" chase. Bartleby's dream, rather, is an unspoken nightmare that ultimately paralyzes him. Whether his paralysis is due to a philosophical or metaphysical paradox that he is unable to overcome is a secret that goes with him to the grave. What the narrator of "Bartleby" intimates, however, is that the Scrivener was more than a mere clerk who passed through the office one day -- and then refused to leave: Bartleby is Everyman -- a lost soul seeking some comfort, some corner to call his own -- some form of charity that asks for nothing in return. This paper will…...