Literary Analysis of Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener"
This essay analyzes Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener," examining its major themes, narrative techniques, and character symbolism. The paper explores how Melville uses careful pacing, symbolic naming, and a deceptively simple plot to address issues of charity, workplace resistance, and economic control on Wall Street. It discusses the lawyer-narrator's puzzlement over Bartleby's persistent refusals, compares supporting characters such as Nippers and Turkey, and traces Bartleby's decline to its bleak conclusion. The essay draws on multiple critical perspectives to argue that Melville's layered thematic construction bridges fiction and the realities of mid-nineteenth-century American society.
- Introduction to Melville and the Story: Critical reception and Melville's authorial background
- Narrative Style and Pacing: Melville's deliberate pacing and plot structure
- The Theme of Charity and the Lawyer's Role: Lawyer's ambiguous charity toward stubborn Bartleby
- Wall Street, Economic Control, and Bartleby's Resistance: Wall Street setting as symbol of economic power
- Supporting Characters and Symbolic Naming: Nippers, Turkey, and Melville's naming technique
- Bartleby's Decline and the Story's Conclusion: Bartleby's final fate and thematic resolution
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What makes this paper effective
- The paper moves logically from an introduction to Melville's style through specific thematic analysis, maintaining a clear thread throughout.
- It uses direct textual quotations from the story alongside multiple critical sources to ground interpretive claims in evidence.
- The discussion of supporting characters (Nippers, Turkey, Ginger Nut) is connected back to the central argument about Melville's technique of using memorable, symbolic names to reinforce theme.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates thematic synthesis — drawing multiple interpretive threads (charity, economic control, workplace resistance, psychological despair) together and showing how each character contributes to an overarching argument. By citing multiple critics who disagree with one another, the writer also models the technique of situating an argument within an existing scholarly conversation rather than presenting interpretation in a vacuum.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with context about the story's critical reception and Melville's authorial style. It then addresses narrative pacing before moving into thematic analysis — first charity and the lawyer's role, then Wall Street and economic control. A dedicated section examines supporting characters and their symbolic names. The essay closes by returning to Bartleby's final fate and drawing the thematic threads together in a brief conclusion.
Introduction to Melville and the Story
"Bartleby, the Scrivener" remains one of the best-known fictional works by Herman Melville. Analysts describe the story as arguably among the most challenging to interpret compared to other writers' works. Over time, numerous critics have differed in their interpretations (Fisher, 59–79; Kaplan and Kloss, 63–79; Stempel and Stillians, 268–82). Only a small portion of scholars agrees on an interpretive trajectory; others fail entirely to find harmony among their schools of thought.
The subject matter of "Bartleby, the Scrivener" was far ahead of its time. When it was written, depression and job dissatisfaction among the middle class were rarely explored subjects. Additionally, the concepts surrounding the importance of Wall Street in Americans' lives were not yet as pronounced. The story was symbolic because Bartleby represented a segment of people who openly rejected their employer's demands while continuing to remain in the workplace.
Before exploring the themes of "Bartleby, the Scrivener" in depth, it is important to understand Melville as a writer. He was gifted at making contemplative and uniquely detailed descriptions in both his novels and short stories. His prose opens technically, thoughtfully, and slowly. His friend and colleague Nathaniel Hawthorne displayed a similar style in The Scarlet Letter. The lawyer, who serves as Melville's narrator, takes time and gradually recounts the story in detail, carefully highlighting both character and setting. For example, at the story's opening, the narrator explains how he offered his scrivener Turkey a coat, only to find Turkey became egotistical and overprotective of it.
Narrative Style and Pacing
The methodical qualities evident in Melville's writing indicate a mastery of pacing. While pacing is a concept more commonly discussed in music and film, Melville applies it to his prose with professional skill. He moves slowly through scenes and then blends in moments of deep action — for example, the episode depicting Benito's escape. Such intense passages serve either as climactic moments or as revelations that illuminate earlier events. Melville captures this rhythm in the period surrounding Bartleby's imprisonment and death.
A roughly three-page stretch of the story covers these events, following the lawyer's rejection and leading to Bartleby's imprisonment. The series of rapid events that unfolds during this phase feels at once inevitable, significant, and deeply sorrowful. This acceleration of pace keeps the reader alert to the causes and consequences of the actions unfolding before them.
The simplicity of the plot is, in this sense, deceptive. With an established reputation on Wall Street, the lawyer acquires a copyist in an unusual manner. Bartleby's position, however, is distinct — he appears to resist the very way events are meant to unfold (Melville, 12). His refusal begins as an honest expression of preference but gradually transforms into a mantra, a defining slogan for his character. The lawyer, meanwhile, seems to imply a reluctant form of resistance in return (Kaplan and Kloss, 63–79).
The Theme of Charity and the Lawyer's Role
Among the most important themes in the story is charity. The role played by the lawyer causes puzzlement among many readers, who are left wondering whether he is ultimately helping or harming Bartleby. Unexpectedly, the lawyer continues to accommodate the stubborn Bartleby — at first because he has not yet fully understood him.
Another reason lies in the manner in which Bartleby refuses the lawyer's requests: his rejections are calm and composed. Such a reaction causes the lawyer to question his own competency, since he expected Bartleby to follow his guidance. As Melville writes: "It is not seldom the case that, when a man is browbeaten in some unprecedented and violently unreasonable way, he begins… to vaguely surmise that, wonderful as it may be, all the justice and all the reason is on the other side" (Melville, 13–14).
The principal source of the lawyer's puzzlement is Bartleby's persistent refusal to take advice. Analysts have compared his character to Cicero and to philosophers such as Mahatma Gandhi. Critics argue that Bartleby's continued rejection of the lawyer's requests can be read as a form of resistance to the materialism that was a common cultural force of the era.
Works Cited
Fisher, Marvin. "'Bartleby,' Melville's Circumscribed Scrivener." The Southern Review, vol. X, no. 1, Winter 1974, pp. 59–79.
Kaplan, Morton, and Robert Kloss. "Fantasy of Passivity: Melville's 'Bartleby the Scrivener.'" The Unspoken Motive: A Guide to Psychoanalytic Literary Criticism, Free Press, 1973, pp. 63–79.
Melville, Herman. "Bartleby the Scrivener." Melville's Short Novels, 2002, pp. 3–34.
Stempel, Daniel, and Bruce M. Stillians. "'Bartleby the Scrivener': A Parable of Pessimism." Nineteenth-Century Fiction, vol. 27, no. 1, 1972–1973, pp. 268–82.
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