Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener: Symbols and Meaning

Introduction: A Strange and Enigmatic Story

In many ways, Bartleby, the Scrivener is a rather strange and enigmatic story. It does not follow a conventional narrative line; it is more of a character-based story, populated by some of the most unusual figures in American fiction. However, if we take a closer look at it, we may be able to discover the hidden meanings that Herman Melville has laid out for us.

From the very beginning, we must identify what a scrivener is, since this story revolves around their lives and habits. A scrivener is an archaic term for a clerk — a person who used to write letters on behalf of illiterate people. In the context of this story, we can identify a scrivener as a person who copied and drafted documents in a law office.

The Lawyer and His Office Characters

The story starts with a short description, in the first person, of the main character — the narrator, a simple lawyer on Wall Street and his modest law office. The character is a rather dull, uninvolved lawyer who has spent most of his life trying to find the easiest way of achieving things. His moment of glory seems to have been his appointment as Master in Chancery: a very undemanding yet well-paid position. This role, however, did not last forever as he had expected, and he was forced to start his own practice. Despite this setback, his overriding concern remains avoiding annoyance and irritation.

His law office housed, until Bartleby's arrival, three distinct characters, each unique in their own way. First, there was Turkey — a copyist of about the lawyer's age. An Englishman of around sixty, his main interest seemed to be food and drink. His daily schedule revolved around dinnertime: he did his best work in the morning and was of no use in the afternoon, when he typically undid all the work he had accomplished earlier. He refuses his employer's suggestion of going home in the afternoons to rest, because he believes firmly in his own usefulness. He is badly dressed and appears to spend all his money on food and drink, with no interest in professional advancement.

The second character in the lawyer's office was Nippers, a young man of about twenty-five. Nippers seems to be the exact opposite of Turkey — and was probably designed as such. His main afflictions are indigestion and ambition. Where Turkey is a passive, content old man with no desire for advancement and an extreme pleasure in eating, Nippers suffers from indigestion and is thoroughly ambitious. Completing this complementary dynamic, his best work is done in the afternoon, since in the morning he is generally irritable and upset — born, as the writer puts it, with a certain innate irritability. Further emphasizing that Nippers is a mirror image of Turkey, he never drinks and is always well dressed.

Ginger Nut was the third character: a boy of around twelve years old, sent to the office as a student and errand boy by his father, who hoped to see him become a lawyer. He is used as a general helper — sweeping, cleaning — but his most important function within the firm appears to be fetching cakes for Turkey and Nippers, which is how he earned his nickname. He is a secondary character and does not appear frequently in the story.

Enter Bartleby

Among all these eccentric characters, Bartleby appears from the very beginning to be even more unusual than the rest. His manner is, as the writer puts it, "sedate" — calm and grave. The narrator mentions that Bartleby was hired because he could serve as a balanced middle ground between the complementary yet so different characters of Turkey and Nippers. If we examine the way the writer has constructed his cast, we see that Bartleby fits neatly into this landscape, and we might be surprised to later discover that he could not be integrated into this small group. Until his arrival, the writer seems to have left a place just right for him: that of a counterweight within the office. And at first this choice seems sound, as Bartleby works industriously and produces a large volume of copying.

However, strange behavior soon begins to emerge. Bartleby starts to refuse simple tasks his employer asks of him — reviewing papers, for instance — responding only with "I would prefer not to." Notice how unusual this answer is: it is neither a yes nor a no, but an expression of personal preference. It is unexpected because, ordinarily, when we refuse something, we simply say no and perhaps offer a reason. Bartleby never offers a reason, which makes his refusals all the more unsettling.

Additionally, he never goes to dinner and appears to eat nothing but the ginger nuts the office boy fetches for him. This detail anticipates the story's ending, in which Bartleby starves himself to death: even from the middle of the narrative, the reader is made aware that something is profoundly wrong with this man's relationship to food.

References

Mollinger, Robert N. "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street."

Hornby, A.S., Gatenby, E.V., and Wakefield, H. The Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English. 2nd ed., 1972.