Alienation in Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" Explained

Introduction: Setting and Characters

Herman Melville's short story Bartleby, the Scrivener revolves around the theme of alienation. Most of the action takes place in an office building in New York in the middle of the nineteenth century. The head of the office is the Master in Chancery, who also serves as the narrator. His employees consist of an office boy and three law-copyists, or scriveners, the last of whom he hired being Bartleby: "In answer to my advertisement, 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).

The relationship between the head of the office and Bartleby, although promising at the beginning, soon deteriorates due to the strange behavior Bartleby displays when asked to perform the simple task of checking his own work.

The relationships the narrator has with the other three members of his office are also rather peculiar. Melville chooses not to reveal the real names of the other two scriveners, disclosing only their nicknames — the result of what they called each other in the office. Turkey and Nippers are two opposite temperaments, not easy to manage, as their boss acknowledges. The narrator introduces the group as "an interesting and somewhat singular set of men, of whom as yet nothing that I know of has ever been written: — I mean the law-copyists or scriveners" (Melville). Surprisingly, the lives of scriveners, dull in appearance, form the subject of the story. Everything in Melville's narrative is centered upon their lives within the office; nothing of their existence outside it is ever revealed.

The narrator introduces himself as "one of those unambitious lawyers who never addresses a jury, or in any way draws down public applause; but in the cool tranquillity of a snug retreat, do a snug business among rich men's bonds and mortgages and title-deeds" (Melville).

The Office World and Its Workers

The two original clerks, Turkey and Nippers, along with Ginger Nut, the office boy, are characterized by their employer as rather ordinary human beings who perform their jobs with varying degrees of diligence, and they inspire little public sympathy. Turkey is sixty years old, has apparently spent his entire career as a minor clerk, and seems very fond of drinking ale — the cause of his sloppiness after lunchtime. He is tolerated partly because he is the same age as his employer and inspires a measure of compassion. Nippers is younger, perhaps a younger version of Turkey. He arouses little sympathy. He is passionate about his work and described by his boss as always eager to exceed his duties, yet not particularly useful in his impatient striving. He does, however, balance the lack of precision that Turkey invariably displays in the afternoons. In practice, the two are useful to the Master in Chancery only half the time they spend in the office. The narrator tolerates them both and tacitly agrees to pay two men for the output of one. The young office boy, only twelve years old, is briefly described and seems to represent what all of them must have been in childhood, when they aspired to find a comfortable position better than whatever their parents had held.

They all work in an office building in New York, with every window facing brick walls or interior shafts — an environment that itself embodies confinement and monotony.

Bartleby enters this imperfect but functioning world as the one hope of combining the qualities of an industrious scrivener. He will soon prove to be the worst an employer could wish for: he will simply refuse, plainly and quietly, to perform certain tasks. His attitude is troubling in its refusal, yet he maintains an emotionless composure throughout. His employer finds it difficult to simply dismiss him, as anyone else might readily have done. The reader already understands that the narrator is compassionate and tolerates behaviors in the other two scriveners that many employers would use as grounds for dismissal.

The narrator chooses to postpone any drastic measure and instead tries to understand his clerk's reaction and observe how things will develop. After all, Bartleby had been performing his main task — copying — quite well and continuously. The second time he refuses a directive from his employer, however, it happens in front of all the other employees. This new situation demands an immediate response, because the narrator's authority is openly questioned. By failing to act, he risks setting off a chain reaction of insubordination among the rest of the staff.

Bartleby's Passive Resistance

He decides to consult the others before making any sudden decision. They respond according to their own dispositions and the time of day. Still before noon, Turkey is in a reasonable mood and recommends clemency; Nippers is irritable and suggests firing Bartleby; and Ginger Nut, the voice of innocence, expresses the opinion that Bartleby is mentally disturbed. These responses function almost as voices of the narrator's own alter ego — he could identify with any one of them depending on his mood or the moment.

The head of the office decides to retain this stubborn and puzzling character. He concludes that, beyond all other considerations, he is moved chiefly by pity. He frames his inaction as an act of charity, one that gives him the opportunity to feel virtuous — and one, he notes, that costs him relatively little.

Their daily routines continue, but eventually the narrator feels compelled to dismiss Bartleby, who has by now refused to perform any work at all and has thus given every justifiable reason for his removal. An astonishing discovery on a Sunday morning adds further weight to the case: the narrator drops by the office unexpectedly and discovers that Bartleby has been living there. Even this revelation fails to prompt decisive action. Bartleby is clearly a case for social welfare and professional care; he is also severely alienated and likely in need of psychiatric assistance.

Conclusion: The Cost of Dehumanizing Labor

Unable to return to the world around him, Bartleby ultimately succumbs. By the end of the story, the reader learns that he once worked in Washington sorting so-called dead letters — the only additional biographical detail Melville provides. This revelation is significant. The job was both morbid and relentlessly repetitive, and the position of scrivener that followed it appears, if anything, even more deadening. The dead-letter office serves as a metaphor for communications that never reach their destination — words, feelings, and human connections that simply disappear. It is a fitting origin story for a man who ultimately loses his own connection to the living world.