The Mysterious Bartleby, The Scrivener By Herman Melville

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The Mysterious Bartleby “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” by Herman Melville, is a distinguished story describing the life of an ordinary man in the business world on Wall Street. Although this story can be taken in more ways than one, depending on the reader, Melville intended that the reading should only be interpreted one way, by using different literary elements which builds suspense on what will happen next. Bartleby explores themes of alienation through descriptions of characters and settings that call to mind prisons and imprisonment. Bartleby is hired at a law firm where he works as a copyist for a Lawyer and with three other coworkers. The narrator, which is the Lawyer himself, explains his initial thoughts about Bartleby and explains…show more content…
The narrator describes the second story lawyers office as, “Owing to the great height of the surrounding buildings, and my chambers being on the second floor, the interval between this wall and mine not a little resembled a huge square cistern” (Melville 368). The 3 other employees of the office, Nippers, Turkey, and Ginger-nut, are individually explained as well. Nippers does not have a good mood in the morning but as the afternoon comes about, he mellows out and works diligently. Turkey is the opposite of Nippers, meaning that he works best in the morning but then gets out of hand come afternoon time. Ginger-nut is simply just a worker who delivers ginger cakes to Turkey and Nippers as they work. Bartleby ties into the company in a different way than Nippers, Turkey, and Ginger-nut. In the beginning Bartleby shows much enthusiasm about working as a copyist and carries out and perfects each task by the set time he is given. There comes one instance where the Lawyer asks Bartleby to examine a small paper with him, and he replies, “I would prefer not to.” With Bartleby being so on top of his tasks this reply takes the…show more content…
It is not that Bartleby does not show up for work, it is that he stays at work, while doing nothing with his time. The lawyer describes him in a specific scene of the story by saying, “meanwhile Bartleby sat in his hermitage, oblivious to everything but his own peculiar business there” (376). The entire office believes that Bartleby is a little “luny.” Bartleby might seem autistic to some outsiders and readers of this story. No matter how many times the Lawyer tries to get more out of Bartleby, than “I would prefer not to,” nothing changes. The Lawyer notices that Bartleby has not been leaving the office, but instead of confronting him about it, he lets him reside there. “One prime thing was this,-he was always there;-first in the morning, continually through the day, and the last at night” (378). One Sunday, the Lawyer travels to the office to find that Bartleby’s missing an he before he left he straightened up his desk. Since the Lawyer feels compelled because the office and everything in it he owns, so then he looks through the desk. “Without hindrance I inserted my key, opened it, and entered. Bartleby was not to be seen. The Lawyer says, “I looked around anxiously, peeped

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