Herman Melville's creation Bartleby, who appears in his story "Bartleby the Scrivener" is a man who lives in a highly straightened world. His story is that of a man who at first appears as if he should be able to meet the expectations of his society: Bartleby when we meet him looks like a man who should be perfectly at home in a Wall Street firm. But we learn quickly that this is in fact not the case. Bartleby is fundamentally unsuited to this world - unsuited to the world that he has for reasons that Melville intentionally never makes clear to us - chosen to inhabit. The story is thus usually read as a tragic one of self-destruction, the tale of a man who succumbs to the strain of attempting to conform to the rules of a society that he no longer believes in.
But the story has another possible reading that is at least as legitimate, which is how we help other people whom we know to be in need of help. For the story is not only Bartleby's tale; it is arguably not even primarily Bartleby's story at all but the story of the narrator who tries again and again to help Bartleby, whom (it becomes clearer and clearer throughout the story) does not wish to be helped. He is perfectly sincere in his repeated contention that all he wishes is to be left alone - something that the narrator does not believe or at least does not want to believe. He cannot understand how a man can be as defeated by his life as Bartleby is and he desperately wants to break through Bartleby's solitude and misery.
Yet, thought I, it is evident enough that Bartleby has been making his home here, keeping bachelor's hall all by himself. Immediately then the thought came sweeping across me, What miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed! His poverty is great; but his solitude, how horrible! Think of it. Of a Sunday, Wall-street is deserted as Petra; and every night of every day it is an emptiness. This building too, which of week-days hums with industry ...