Essay on "Herman Melville, Bartelby the Scrivener: A Story"

Essay 4 pages (1266 words) Sources: 1

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Herman Melville, "Bartelby the scrivener: a story of Wall Street" is at this point considered one of the most important short stories of American literature. Although it was not received with best reviews in the 1850s when it was first published, the complexity of the writing as well as the themes of the story recommended the piece of literature as one of the most interesting and at the same time revealing literary creations of its time. The main character, Bartelby is the main focus of the story and the element that provides complexity to the piece.

One of the most interesting aspects of the short story is represented by the character of Bartelby, which the narrator introduces from the very beginning as the subject of his writing. Thus, "I waive the biographies of all other scriveners for a few passages in the life of Bartleby, who was a scrivener the strangest I ever saw or heard of. While of other law-copyists I might write the complete life, of Bartleby nothing of that sort can be done. I believe that no materials exist for a full and satisfactory biography of this man. It is an irreparable loss to literature. Bartleby was one of those beings of whom nothing is ascertainable, except from the original sources, and in his case those are very small. What my own astonished eyes saw of Bartleby that is all I know of him, except, indeed, one vague report, which will appear in the sequel" (Melville, 2013). Therefore, the narrator places the character of Bartleby in the main focus of the story and eventually, the entire narration would follow on the characterization of Bartleby. Providing information on the actions Bartleby is undergoing, from first starting to work for the narrator to his eventual death ensures a complex characterization of the role played by Bartleby.

The chief character is portrayed from the very beginning, even if he is not fully introduced from the beginning. The fact that the narrator choses to provide information on his own business as well as his other three employees in fact sets the stage for the development of the character of Bartleby. Moreover, the narrator is pushing on different types of information related to the other characters, for instance assumptions on the way in which the three work in order to subsequently reveal the qualities and shortcomings of Bartleby by comparison. In this sense, the narrator makes some assertions on each of the three characters: "Turkey was a short, pursy Englishman of about my own age, that is, somewhere not far from sixty. In the morning, one might say, his face was of a fine florid hue, but after twelve o'clock, meridian -- his dinner hour -- it blazed like a grate full of Christmas coals; and continued blazing -- but, as it were, with a gradual wane -- till 6 o'clock, P.M. Or thereabouts, after which I saw no more of the proprietor of the face, which gaining its meridian with the sun, seemed to set with it, to rise, culminate, and decline the following day, with the like regularity and undiminished glory" (Melville, 2013). Further, the narrator adds on his personal problems as well as his working habits that were less than satisfying.

The second character 'Nippers, the second on my list, was a whiskered, sallow, and, upon the whole, rather piratical-looking young man of about five and twenty. I always deemed him the victim of two evil powers -- ambition and indigestion. The ambition was evinced by a certain impatience of the duties of a mere copyist, an unwarrantable usurpation of strictly professional affairs, such as the original drawing up of legal documents. The indigestion seemed betokened in an occasional nervous testiness and grinning irritability, causing the teeth to audibly grind… READ MORE

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