After reading Herman Melville’s Bartley the Scrivener, one part that caught my attention was the mention of dead letter office that Bartley used to work in. The narrator states that the dead letter office was a place where Bartley sorted letters that had no recipient and would eventually be destroyed. Before reading Melville’s story, I had no idea what a dead letter office was, and wondered if one actually exists in the real world. After some quick research, I discovered that we do indeed have a dead letter office. According to the USPS, the Mail Recovery Center as formerly known as the “Dead Letter Office.” This center acted as the “lost and found” center for the postal services. While in Herman Melville’s story, the dead letter office seemed like a place that was gloomy and hollow, the USPS Mail Recovery Center, is actually a place where lost mail can be found. In the real world, there is hope that the mail in the formerly known “Dead Letter Office” would have a recipient.
However, I doubt Melville’s mention of the Dead Letter office is in regards to the USPS Mail Recovery Center. Melville uses the dead letter office to symbolize the repetitive and dreary job that more people were doing. Bartley’s job in the dead letter office, was the reason for his depression and his loss of motivation. In the dead letter office, Bartley aimlessly spends his time sorting letters that were sent to be destroyed. This repetitive task was both lifeless and pointless. The dead letter office, is Melville’s portrayal of the lackluster occupations in society that required employees to do repetitive tasks. Alike the dead letter office, if employees continue to purposely do the same task every day, they will not strive to do better. Even today, many employees suffer from depression as they realize that they have to perform the same tasks daily. There is a lack of excitement for their jobs, and can even lead to an employee despising their jobs. If employers do not give employees new opportunities to strength their skills, employees will give up and put no effort into their work. As an employee myself, I can relate to feeling of repeatedly doing the same tasks. It makes me wonder if this was how I was to live the rest of my life as. I realize that I do not want to waste my entire life repeatedly doing the same tasks, and want to experience new things. It would be a shame if we spend our entire life experiencing the same actions over and over again.
– Amy Wang
Interesting, I’ve never thought of the repetitive and boring aspect of Bartleby’s job at the Dead Letter office. My opinion is that Bartleby deals with these letters full of hope of the senders and the receivers and yet they will never be delivered which makes him feel very despaired and hopeless. He is the one who destroys these letters. I believe he would very much like to deliver these letters (but that’s impossible) because these letters can contain very important information that link people together. Just imagine two lovers, or family members misunderstand each other because they never received a letter back from the other person…