"Bartleby the Scrivener" has been hailed as a masterpiece in Herman Melville's short story collection. Within the story Melville weaves both humor and pathos as he, through the voice of the lawyer-narrator, tells the tale of Bartleby, the clerk who regresses farther and farther into his own world until he ceases to live. The story is set on Wall Street, whose aggres-sion contrasts markedly with Bartleby's retreat.
The narrator lives Melville his voice to set the tone of the story, and it is through this tone that the THEME is established: that for some men the only way the can cope with the world is to retreat from it, to create their own reality. It is Melville's view that ultimately this will lead to non-exist-ence, but through the narrator he comes to understand (to a degree) the personality that Bartleby has that makes him go on sabbatical from life.
"In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man one morning stood upon my office threshold, the door being open, for it was summer. I can see that figure now--pallidly neat,
pitiably respectable, and incurably forlorn! It was Bartlely" (Melville 11). With three adjectives Melville has given the reader the essence of Bartleby the man. The narrator is impressed with the fact that initially Bartleby is an employee who attends to his work with clockwork precision.
Without any apparent motivation, Bartleby takes on a new attitude. He "prefers not to" do certain work for the boss. What intrigues the narrator is the way in which Bartleby turns away the work: it stuns the man in disbelief. "Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, had there been anything ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises" (Melville 13).
The narrator attempts to use Psychology on his employee: Bartleby's strange manner is a challenge to the lawyer to try and motivate his lethargic char...