Bartleby, Perhaps Not So Different
When the narrator of Bartleby, the Scrivener first becomes acquainted with the “pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, [and] incurably forlorn” Bartleby, he is quick to point out just how different this man is from the other scriveners at his office (301). In fact, one of the first things that he notices about Bartleby is just how quiet and calm he is, unlike Turkey and Nippers who take turns throughout the day at being irritable and unruly. This seemingly small and innocent difference, however, is soon brought into question when the young scrivener stolidly replies that he would “prefer not to” review the copy that he created. As he repeats this answer, with the same unmoved expression, to nearly all of his boss’s requests and pleadings, the narrator becomes incredibly confused about his employee. Due to Bartleby’s seeming lack of emotion, the narrator describes this man as cadaverous, column-like, and deranged. So strange and different, Bartleby is unlike anything the narrator has ever seen. Herman Melville, the author of this story, almost over-emphasizes the point that Bartleby is unusually eccentric. With the difference between the scrivener and the other characters so immense, I feel compelled to uncover a similarity.
Digging a bit into the text, I began to see an uncanny resemblance between Bartleby and the two other scriveners, Turkey and Nippers. Though Turkey seems to contrast Bartleby in his appearance and temper, the two characters are both incredibly stubborn. Like the young man who refuses to leave the office when he is dismissed, Turkey too does not yield to his boss’s request, though he agrees with the displeased narrator that his work becomes sloppy in the afternoon.
The connection between Bartleby and Nippers is much less obvious, yet far more foreboding and eerie. The narrator describes Nippers as a “sallow” young man, who is the “victim of two evil powers—ambition and indigestion” (299). Bartleby, though certainly not ambitious like Nippers, shares his sickly characteristic. Bartleby is often described as pale and Nippers, too, has an unhealthy quality to his skin. Somehow, Nippers’ state of health is linked to food, or rather the lack of it. The narrator reveals that the young man has to struggle with indigestion, and constantly reminds us of this connection between Nippers and food by addressing the character with his nickname. The name Nippers, which contains the word “nip”, connects to taking, or perhaps digesting, a small bite of food. Overall, Melville frequently draws attention to food, including ginger-nut cakes and apples, in the story. We see these two snacks when the errand boy brings them to the scriveners in the office, and when the narrator finds ginger-nut crumbs in Bartleby’s newspaper. It seems that when Melville references food, Nippers’ indigestion of it, Bartleby’s scarcity of it, and the malnourished-nature of both characters, he somehow foreshadows the gruesome ending of his story, in which Bartleby dies of starvation. The ending also loses some element of shock when I think back to the connection between Turkey and Bartleby. As a stubborn character, Bartleby’s last words were “I prefer not to dine to-day… It would disagree with me; I am unused to dinners” (320). Upon reading that line, I though that the poor man would simply skip one meal, but as it turned out, he refused to eat altogether.
It seems that Melville includes these two seemingly unimportant characters of Turkey and Nippers to show that they are somehow similar and maybe even linked to the strange Bartleby. However, it is the actions of the narrator that end up separating the characters, both figuratively and literally. The narrator overlooks the eccentrics of Turkey and Nippers yet cannot bear to keep the mysterious scrivener in his office. Understandably, he decides that it is best to disposes of Bartleby. Yet we are somehow left to ponder, what would have happened if the narrator were to find a link between himself and Bartleby? As the most compassionate character, would he have been able to save the poor scrivener from his grim fate?
2 responses so far
It was interesting to see the parallel between Bartleby and both Nippers and Turkey. I guess one can say that Bartleby is a combination of both.
The way I read Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener” was the following: I felt that it was a critic of the society of the author’s times, when there was a transition due to the industrialization (hence the rising need for a lawyer, and scriveners). Indeed, at the time, people started getting into a sort of routine, where individual liberties don’t have a part in one’s life. This is where Bartleby comes in, not wanting to give in to the transformations occurring in society (He would “prefer not to”). Consequently, I felt this text was an ode to resistance, and therefore had a timeless aspect to it. Indeed, as I was reading Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener”, it made me think of Stéphane Hessel’s “Time for Outrage!”.
The “downfall” or what lead to Bartleby’s death is probably his preference not to work altogether. While it can be considered a form of resistance, what does Melville want to convey then with Bartleby ultimately dying? That civil resistance would not have a well-deserved outcome? Or is it perhaps to say that it is foolish to be so insistent in one’s belief?
The end baffles me; I’m not sure what to make of it. There is the connection of Bartleby’s previous job in the Dead Letter Office, which transcribes nicely to Dead Men Office (the narrator’s work place). Maybe Bartleby’s story is to show us the futility or fruitlessness of industrial, almost robotic, work–that whether a person works like Turkey or Nippers or one who doesn’t like Bartleby, they are essentially dead by its purposelessness.
I don’t know… I’m lost in the insistence of Bartleby and his robotic phrase, “I would prefer not to.”