Herman Melville has written many well-known stories and books, possibly best known for "Moby Dick." However twisted and dark view of society Melville portrays, it is far deeper and darker in the short story, "Bartleby The Scrivener." This story has been read and analyzed by many notable scholars. These well known professors have offered many explanations of

Melville's story. I will explore a few of their ideas on the story and offer one of my own.

"Bartleby the Scrivener" is a story about a kind hearted lawyer and the scriveners under his employment. The lawyer has a rather dull office on Wall Street in New York, where his main business is dealing with the drawing up contracts for his clients. For this he has under his employment 3 scriveners and an apprentice. The scrivener's job is none other than to hand copy documents, as this story is set in a time when there were no copy machines and computers. Two of his employees are somewhat distempered. One is a fat man that comes into work dirty and smelling of food. The other is an ill-tempered man who often has bill collectors visit him while at work. The third scrivener Bartl

Melville, Herman. Selected Writings of Herman Melville: Complete Short Stories, Typee [And] Billy Budd, Foretopman. New York: Modern Library, 1952.

He was assigned a desk in a corner of the room next to a window that only shown a dirty old brick wall. At first he worked with the intensity of a finely tuned machine. "At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long famished for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents." (Melville 1048). However when asked to revise his document, a common practice among scriveners, he simply refused, saying simply "I prefer not to." (Melville 1049). Shocked and astonished the lawyer contemplated dismissing the scrivener and could not bring himself to do it. "There was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner, touched and disconnected me." (Melville 1049). Later he discovered that Bartleby had been living in the office, the lawyer didn't know how to approach the problem. He did end up letting him continue to live there. Further along in the story the scrivener decides to quit working completly, th!

Melville, Herman. Bartleby The Scrivener. Making Literature Matter, New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000.

vor of the lawyer. Much in the way that Melville started his transition to writing in his new style, yet was still given good reviews by the critics. Eventually the scrivener completely refused to work, and was no longer in the good graces of the lawyer. Much in the same way that Melville refused to revert back to his old ways of writing and was ripped apart by the critics. Melville refused in much the same way that the scrivener did, he didn't make a big deal about not reverting but simply preferred not to make any changes in his writings. Melville would just simply not leave the literary scene however in the eyes of the critics he was unproductive, much the same as the scrivener did not leave the office. No matter what would happen to him Melville simply refused to go back to the ways of old, just like the scrivener. It is reasonable to say that "Bartleby The Scrivener" was a met

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Approximate Word count = 1449
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)