Herman Melville, Bartelby the Scrivener:

¶ … Herman Melville, "Bartelby the scrivener: a story of Wall Street" is at this point considered one of the most important short stories of American literature. Although it was not received with best reviews in the 1850s when it was first published, the complexity of the writing as well as the themes of the story recommended the piece of literature as one of the most interesting and at the same time revealing literary creations of its time. The main character, Bartelby is the main focus of the story and the element that provides complexity to the piece.

One of the most interesting aspects of the short story is represented by the character of Bartelby, which the narrator introduces from the very beginning as the subject of his writing. Thus, "I waive the biographies of all other scriveners for a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener the strangest I ever saw or heard of. While of other law-copyists I might write the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done. I believe that no materials exist for a full and satisfactory biography of this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was one of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the original sources, and in his case those are very small. What my own astonished eyes saw of Bartleby that is all I know of him, except, indeed, one vague report, which will appear in the sequel" (Melville, 2013). Therefore, the narrator places the character of Bartleby in the main focus of the story and eventually, the entire narration would follow on the characterization of Bartleby. Providing information on the actions Bartleby is undergoing, from first starting to work for the narrator to his eventual death ensures a complex characterization of the role played by Bartleby.

The chief character is portrayed from the very beginning, even if he is not fully introduced from the beginning. The fact that the narrator choses to provide information on his own business as well as his other three employees in fact sets the stage for the development of the character of Bartleby. Moreover, the narrator is pushing on different types of information related to the other characters, for instance assumptions on the way in which the three work in order to subsequently reveal the qualities and shortcomings of Bartleby by comparison. In this sense, the narrator makes some assertions on each of the three characters: "Turkey was a short, pursy Englishman of about my own age, that is, somewhere not far from sixty. In the morning, one might say, his face was of a fine florid hue, but after twelve o'clock, meridian -- his dinner hour -- it blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals; and continued blazing -- but, as it were, with a gradual wane -- till 6 o'clock, P.M. Or thereabouts, after which I saw no more of the proprietor of the face, which gaining its meridian with the sun, seemed to set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the following day, with the like regularity and undiminished glory" (Melville, 2013). Further, the narrator adds on his personal problems as well as his working habits that were less than satisfying.

The second character 'Nippers, the second on my list, was a whiskered, sallow, and, upon the whole, rather piratical-looking young man of about five and twenty. I always deemed him the victim of two evil powers -- ambition and indigestion. The ambition was evinced by a certain impatience of the duties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictly professional affairs, such as the original drawing up of legal documents. The indigestion seemed betokened in an occasional nervous testiness and grinning irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grind together over mistakes committed in copying; unnecessary maledictions, hissed, rather than spoken, in the heat of business; and especially by a continual discontent with the height of the table where he worked" (Melville, 2013). Therefore, both characters failed to have positive reviews from their employer; yet, by compensation, they managed to remain employed. The discrepancy between the assignments they were paid to manage and the actual results in fact will weight more by comparison to the amount of work Bartleby would be able to achieve up to a certain point. Therefore, it can be said that one of the first characterizations of the main character is provided through the comparative characterization of the other two important characters.

As per the narrator, "a motionless young man one morning, stood upon my office threshold, the door being open, for it was summer. I can see that figure now -- pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby" (Melville, 2013). Aside from the brief description when introducing the character of Bartleby, the narrator points out that "I engaged him, glad to have among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an aspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper of Turkey, and the fiery one of Nippers" which points out the need for initial characterization of the two other employees.

An important aspect to be taken into account with Bartleby's character is the relation between him and the narrator. In that period, given that the narrator was also his employer, there is a clear distinction of class between the employees and the narrator. More precisely, the fact that the narrator allowed himself to keep two employees and a twelve-year-old in the conditions of unsatisfying performance leads to the conclusion that the narrator, although a business man, did not necessarily seek profitable or good business management, but rather an environment in which to develop different characters and relations between them.

Given the difference in social class, the character of Bartleby is also prone to charity from the part of his employer. Despite the fact that as an employee, he eventually refused to perform his duties any more, and refusing by the phrase "I would prefer not to," Bartleby benefited from a certain type of respect from the narrator. More precisely, "His steadiness, his freedom from all dissipation, his incessant industry (except when he chose to throw himself into a standing revery behind his screen), his great stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under all circumstances, made him a valuable acquisition." (Melville, 2013) Therefore, when the housing situation worsened for Bartleby, the narrator offered to come to his own house to stay. This type of charity as well as Bartleby's obvious reply, "I prefer not to" may be considered as representative for a type of relation between two different social classes, one of the rich and one of the poor.