Bartelby
... at the office. But once again, the narrator’s emotional response surprises him. The loneliness of Bartleby's life bothers the narrator; according to him, at night and on Sundays, Wall Street is as desolate as a ghost town. He alternates between pity and revulsion for Bartleby's bizarre behavior. Bartleby continues to refuse duties, until finally he is doing no work at all. And yet the narrator cannot get him to leave. The scrivener has a strange power over his employer, and the narrator feels he cannot do anything to harm this forlorn man. But his business associates begin to wonder at Bartleby's presence at the office, since he does no work, and the threat of a ruined reputation forces the narrator to do something. His attempts to get Bartleby to go are fruitless. So the narrator moves his offices to a new location. But soon afterward, the new tenants of the narrator's old offices come to him asking for help; Bartleby simply will not live. When they oust him from the offices, Bartleby remains in the hallways. The narrator goes to see Bartleby in one last attempt to reason with him, but Bartleby predictably rejects him. Later, the narrator learns that Bartleby has been put in prison. At the prison, Bartleby seems even more glum than usual. The narrator's friendliness is rebuffed once again. The narrator bribes a chef to make sure Bartleby stays well fed, but once again, Bartleby refuses any help. When the narrator returned a few days later, Bartleby had died. Some time afterward, the old lawyer hears a rumor that Bartleby worked in a Dead Letter Office. The narrator reflects that the dead letters would have made anyone of Bartleby's temperament sink into an even darker gloom. Through the letters, the narrator is able to glimpse in the utter gloom Bartleby felt. The last words of the story are: Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity! For some, Herman Melville’s Bartleby is a testament to the act of civil disobedience. Similar to the actions of Martin Luther King Jr. or Mahatmas Gandhi, Bartleby appears to have peacefully refused to cooperate with authorities. And on some levels, the story certainly can suggest that Bartleby was simply seeking a calm approach to the corporate injustices surrounding him. His miserable location in the office and his menial task of copying legal documents must have been torturous for the man. However, Melville does not appear to have emphasized Bartleby’s refusal as an act of civil disobedience. Instead, it seems as if Bartleby is a character utterly detached from his surroundings. He fails miserably at relating emotionally with anyone, even a boss who reaches out and attempts to befriend him. Perhaps Melville is simply showing that the hierarchal, even despotic, relationship between an employer and employee can never be bridged in the capitalistic infrastructure. But more so, he is showing the utter meaninglessness of Bartleby’s existence. Bartleby was bitter before he met the lawyer, and his actions were probably more a sign of his contempt for people in general, and not an act of civil disobedience. In paragraph 5, before describing Bartleby, the narrator discusses Turkey. This scrivener is a man who is about the same age as the Lawyer. Melville uses highly descriptive and occasionally humorous language to personify Turkey. Through the narrator’s long winded ex...