Bartleby the Scrivener: Free Will, Despair, and Calvinism

Introduction

Herman Melville published "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" in 1853. It marked the beginning of his decline as a "respected" American writer. His previous novel, Pierre; or, The Ambiguities, had already precipitated the decline of his literary reputation — a decline first initiated by Moby-Dick, published in 1851. Melville's frustration with his reading public (and with the publishing houses that deemed his style and subjects too odd and too metaphysical) boiled over in Pierre. "Bartleby" was an attempt to examine the preoccupations of Melville's own mind in a more light-hearted, semi-satirical manner, while still retaining the robust indignation he felt most keenly towards the limitations of the Calvinist doctrines that had shaped New England society. Melville had thoroughly hunted down and dismantled these doctrines in Moby-Dick. "Bartleby" was an exercise in addressing them as manifested in the rise of the world of finance — and in the question of the human spirit in a society totally consumed by legalities, materialistic conquest, and determinism.

Summary

"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is, in fact, more than just a story of Wall Street. It is a story of the utterly incomprehensible mystery of free will and the extent to which one may assert one's will in this world. The narrator is an unnamed but erudite observer of human nature. He is a lawyer who runs a small firm on Wall Street in the 19th century, when American society was transitioning from being a rough-and-tumble, untamed country to a country of finance. Indeed, Melville alludes to the rise of materialistic pursuit as the American ideal when he mentions John Jacob Astor — "a name which, I admit, I love to repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and rings like unto bullion" (Melville, 1853). His descriptions of his two law clerks, Turkey and Nippers, are testaments to his powers of astuteness, and the narrator's humble demeanor, general passivity, and dignified bearing mark him as one who has spent time both successfully managing his own business and managing his own personal habits so that none could accuse him of being unrefined or lacking in decorum.

Bartleby arrives and, of course, changes everything.

Bartleby responds to an advertisement placed by the narrator, who is looking for an extra copyist to help in the firm. The narrator is initially greatly impressed and pleased with Bartleby's aptitude for working long stretches without complaint. His new hire is rather singular, however, in that he has no easily identifiable characteristics that would mark him as a flawed human being: he lacks Turkey's weakness for drink and Nippers' fiery temper. He is, instead, sedate, staid, and somewhat aloof to the goings-on of his environment. In all respects, he is the ideal candidate for the position of law copyist on Wall Street — almost an inhuman automaton whose sole function is to serve as a scrivener.

Then one day, Bartleby decides to assert his humanity with five little words: "I would prefer not to."

Bartleby's response is to a summons from the narrator to compare a copy with the other clerks, a common practice. His assertion — his preference — so badly sabotages the narrator's hitherto perfect equanimity and the smoothly running office. At first, the narrator is simply stunned. But as Bartleby's attitude hardens into obstinacy and his defiance becomes more pronounced and problematic, the narrator undergoes such psychological and physical strain that he is literally beside himself over what to do about Bartleby, who prefers neither to work any longer as a copyist nor to vacate the premises. The narrator struggles to find ways to motivate Bartleby or to get him to see the absurdity of his situation and begin to act more rationally.

Bartleby, meanwhile, is unmoved by the narrator's overtures, refuses all work, and begins squatting in the law firm — preferring even to remain there through the night as though it were his home. From morning till evening he sits in his quiet "hermitage" in a "dead-wall reverie," as the narrator puts it — motionless and devoid of any interest in communicating with the world around him or engaging in any sort of activity whatsoever. The narrator alternates between fits of outrage and calm, mild-mannered expressions of sympathy. He is continuously perplexed by Bartleby's increasing detachment and torn between wanting to demonstrate Christian charity (allowing Bartleby to stay as a permanent fixture) and wanting to practice a kind of tough love by evicting him for his passivity and refusal to work. In the end, however, Bartleby becomes such a distraction for the narrator's associates — who begin to mock the narrator for putting up with the odd clerk — that the lawyer finally decides to relocate his firm to a new set of lodgings, leaving Bartleby behind.

Having moved his offices, the narrator momentarily feels freed of Bartleby and comforts his conscience by reasoning that he has done all that could reasonably be expected of a man predisposed to doing good for his fellow human beings. Then he receives a call from the new tenant of the offices he has quit — a call about a young man who is squatting on the steps and will not move. It is, of course, Bartleby, who continues to haunt the premises. The narrator affirms that he has no connection to the individual. The caller thanks him and informs him that there is therefore nothing to do but call the police. Bartleby is promptly arrested.

The narrator's conscience then begins to gnaw at him. He questions himself: had he really done all he could to help Bartleby? Even when Bartleby had refused his advice, had he in some way abandoned the young man by moving his offices? Did he owe Bartleby some kind of shelter, some kind of support? Had he neglected his Christian duty by Bartleby? How far could he reasonably go to sustain the young man in what could only be described as a state of utter despair?

Plagued by these questions, the narrator heads to the prison. He finds Bartleby in one of his dead-wall reveries, turned and facing the wall of the prison yard — motionless, ignorant of the world and his environment. Inquiring of a guard about Bartleby's condition, the narrator learns that Bartleby does nothing all day but stare at the wall; he does not move, eat, or drink. The narrator gives the guard some money and begs him to take care of Bartleby, then leaves.

But even this fails to quiet the lawyer's conscience. He returns again a few days later. This time, Bartleby is lying on the ground. The guard thinks he is sleeping, but upon closer inspection it is clear that Bartleby is dead. The narrator alludes to the dignity of Bartleby's soul by affirming that the deceased now sleeps "with kings and counselors."

A brief epilogue follows in which the lawyer comes into possession of a small detail about Bartleby's backstory — from a time before the young clerk came to work in the law office. Describing it only as a rumor, the narrator states that Bartleby was said to have been a clerk in the Dead Letter Office in Washington — the place where undeliverable letters and parcels are consigned to the flames, as the individuals to whom they were addressed had moved to parts unknown or died before delivery could be accomplished. The lawyer laments the office and the untold horror of it (as well as Bartleby's dismissal from the place following a change in administration) and concludes with these words: "On errands of life, these letters speed to death. Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!"

Analysis

According to Tally, Jr. (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 — a resignation to the belief that one cannot be saved or enjoy eternal happiness with God. The religious definition is particularly relevant here, as Bartleby — like Melville himself — must be viewed as one who is especially troubled by the role that free will plays in the Protestant religious experience, which centers so heavily 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 choose of one's 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, at the metaphysical level, Protestant theory holds that one cannot choose to be with God of one's own free will if God has not already chosen him, then 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 symbolizes the prayers and petitions of those seeking intervention from the Almighty, if the theme of free will within a religious paradigm is 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 he felt it lacked "poetical enjoyment," consisting as it did primarily of qualities "in which the suffering finds no vent in action; in which a continuous state of mental distress is prolonged, unrelieved by incident, hope, or resistance; in which there is everything to be endured, nothing to be done" (Stempel & Stillians, 1972, p. 268). Arnold may have refrained from showing such a work to his audience — but not Melville. Melville was a man who understood precisely why a work consisting of such qualities had to be published in a society at risk of losing all sense of what it meant to have a soul.

Conclusion

Melville's "Bartleby" is as confounding today as it was when published. The reason is simple: nothing has changed. The religious questions that plagued Melville then can still be felt hovering above the chatter of contemporary American society: What is the purpose of all this? Am I free? Am I in need of saving? Though the questions may be heard, the answers are muted. The reader is meant to reflect and enter into a quiet state of meditation — perhaps like Bartleby himself in his hermitage.

When approaching a literary analysis of "Bartleby the Scrivener," one thing above all bears keeping in mind: Melville was a man who had seen and heard it all. Convinced that God had a heart, and that his contemporaries seemed to believe the Almighty was rather "all brain like a watch," Melville set out to express his conviction artistically. "Bartleby" is, in this sense, a plea — a cry — that if there is no heart in one's religion, it can have no meaning and be of no value. Melville wanted desperately to believe in a good God, without Whom there could be no hope for him nor for all the Bartlebys of the world.

References

Melville, H. (1853). Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street.

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. In Bloom's Literary Themes: Alienation. InfoBase Publishing.