(2009), “the characteristic [Bartleby] radiates is darkness rather than light” (p. 2). In other words, Bartleby is a problematic character whose purpose in the story is to pose a problematic phenomenon to the narrator and the reader. That problem is despair. Despair is the quality of lacking hope. In religious terms, despair is characterized as the giving up of hope in one’s salvation or resignation to the belief that one cannot be saved or enjoy eternal happiness with God in Heaven. The religious definition is particularly relevant in Bartleby as the character, like Melville himself, must be viewed as one who (whether he knows it consciously or not) is particularly troubled by the role that free will plays in the Protestant religious experience, which centers so much on the concept of predestination—the idea that one is saved or damned regardless of one’s will. In 19th century New England Calvinist society, God chooses who will be of the elect; one does not get to choose of his own free will.
Bartleby represents a negative reaction to such a worldview: he is a character who continuously asserts his own free will by saying, “I would prefer not to,” to the various requests made of him. In effect, he is refusing to participate in a world where his choice is meaningless. If, ultimately (i.e., at the metaphysical level), according to Protestant theory, one cannot choose to be with God of his own free will if God has not already chosen him, there is no point in doing anything. Life is meaningless. Salvation is arbitrarily designated by a God who cares not for the creatures he has created. Bartleby plays along, following the rules, writing out the laws—until finally he has had enough. His time in the Dead Letter Office (a place that represents the prayers and petitions of those seeking intervention from the Almighty, if the theme of free will within a religious paradigm is to be followed to its utmost logical application) prior to his employment in the law office (a place that represents the arbitrary, legalistic constructs of the Calvinistic, New England Protestant ethos) serves as the philosophical and theological prelude to Bartleby’s final refusal to participate. He is, in effect, saying that the system is rigged: only the elites—the elect—the “chosen”—can have hope. And they, seemingly, are the ones who rule the roost—the successful tribe of Wall Street. Bartleby resigns his commission and the narrator—like Ishmael at the end of Moby-Dick—alone survives to tell the tale.
Stempel and Stillians (1972) suggest that Melville’s Bartleby represents all the morbid characteristics of Matthew Arnold’s Empedocles on Etna. Ironically, at around the same time Melville published his story, Arnold decided not to publish his poem—for the reason that…
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
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