An Essay On Bartleby The Scriviner

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One theme of "Bartleby, the Scrivener" is Dehumanization associated with work. In this essay, I will explain how various Story Elements serve to express this theme in the story; and how this theme relates to my own experiences. The story is narrated by a lawyer who is described to be an eminently safe man. The narrator's office is described to be incredibly bleak and the way he portrays the Wall Street is completely unnatural. He claims a brick-wall outside office chambers to be black for ages which signifies that the place has not come to light for ages (p. 102). He also explains how the wall-street echoes with vacancy in the nightfall and how deserted it is on the weekends (p. 112). This suggests a sense of emptiness and lifelessness of the work place. Before Bartleby, the lawyer had three employees, Turkey, Nippers and Ginger-Nut who mutually conferred these nicknames to each-other. Turkey was of same age as lawyer, and used to work very hard with dedication until noon, after which he used to get drunk. Then he used to get too energetic and used to blot on copy-paper too much. Due to this, the lawyer wanted to convince him to quit in the afternoons so that other employees would not be affected by Turkey. He couldn't remove Turkey from his work as he was already short of people and Turkey was very good at his work till the noon. Nippers had a problem of indigestion due to which he used to be very inefficient till the noon and he used to commit many mistakes in copying the legal documents. Also, the lawyer complained that Nippers had a continual discontent with the chair and table used for copying, which, to him felt like Nippers wanted to get rid of table altogether (p. 104). Nippers, after noon though, was very efficient at copying the legal documents. This shows that the lawyer was always discontent somehow of his workers whatever they used to do.

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