13+ paper examples, study guides & outlines
Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" is a foundational text in American literature courses, appearing frequently in surveys of nineteenth-century fiction and in classes focused on short fiction, existentialism, and labor in literature. The story follows a law copyist who responds to nearly every workplace demand with the phrase "I would prefer not to," making it a rich subject for academic inquiry into themes of passive resistance, alienation, identity, and the relationship between employer and employee in a modernizing society. Its compressed form and ambiguous ending invite multiple interpretive frameworks, which is part of what makes it so productive for literary analysis assignments.
Student essays on this topic tend to center on close readings of Melville's narrative, with particular attention to character analysis of Bartleby himself and the unnamed lawyer-narrator who employs him. Papers commonly examine the story's central themes — including isolation, free will, conformity, and the dehumanizing effects of clerical labor — and analyze how Melville constructs meaning through the protagonist's refusals. Some essays take a comparative approach, situating the story within broader questions about American society, while others focus on literary elements such as point of view, tone, and the narrator's reliability.
A strong essay on this topic establishes a focused, arguable thesis rather than simply summarizing the plot. Effective evidence comes from specific passages in the text, analyzed for what they reveal about character motivation or thematic meaning. The most common pitfall is treating Bartleby's behavior as self-explanatory rather than interrogating what Melville leaves deliberately unresolved about his psychology and circumstances.