Bartleby, the Scrivener
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"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" is a novella by American author Herman Melville (1819-1891). The story first appeared, anonymously, in Putnam's Magazine in two parts. The first part appeared in November 1853, with the conclusion published in December 1853. It was reprinted in Melville's The Piazza Tales in 1856 with minor textual alterations.
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[edit] Inspiration
The work is said to have been inspired, in part, by Melville's reading of Emerson, and some have pointed to specific parallels to Emerson's essay, "The Transcendentalist." [1]
[edit] Plot summary
The narrator, an elderly lawyer who has a very comfortable business helping wealthy men deal with mortgages, title deeds, and bonds, relates the story of the strangest man he has ever known.
The narrator already employs two scriveners, Nippers and Turkey. Nippers suffers from chronic indigestion, and Turkey is a drunk, but the office survives because in the mornings Turkey is sober even though Nippers is irritable, and in the afternoon Nippers has calmed down even though Turkey is drunk. Ginger Nut, the office boy, gets his name from the little cakes he brings the older men. The narrator places an ad for another scrivener, Bartleby comes in to answer to an employment ad, and the narrator hires the forlorn looking young man in hopes that his calmness will soothe the temperaments of the other scriveners.
One day, when the narrator asks Bartleby to help proofread a copied document, Bartleby answers simply, "I would prefer not to." It is the first of Bartleby's many refusals. To the dismay of the narrator and the irritation of the other employees, Bartleby performs fewer and fewer duties around the office. The narrator makes several attempts to reason with Bartleby and learn about him, but Bartleby always responds the same way when asked to do a task or give out information about himself: "I would prefer not to." One weekend, when the narrator stops in at the office, he discovers that Bartleby is living at the office. The loneliness of Bartleby's life strikes the narrator: at night and on Sundays, Wall Street is as desolate as a ghost town. He alternates between pity and revulsion for Bartleby's bizarre behavior.
Bartleby continues to refuse to perform his duties, although strictly speaking, he in each case simply responds that he would "prefer not to." This pattern continues to the point that finally he is doing no work at all. Even then, the narrator cannot get him to leave. The reluctant scrivener has a strange power over his employer, and the narrator feels that he cannot do anything to harm this forlorn man. The sense of urgency is increased as the narrator's business associates begin to wonder at Bartleby's presence at the office, noticing that he does no work.
Sensing the threat of a ruined reputation, the narrator feels compelled to act. His attempts to get Bartleby to leave are, however, fruitless. Thus, the narrator moves his offices to a new location, thinking this strategy will rid him of Bartleby. Though it does work for the narrator (Bartleby does not relocate), soon after the new tenants of the narrator's old offices come to him asking for help: Bartleby will not leave the premises. Though the new tenants ousted Bartleby from the offices, he simply haunted the hallways. The narrator goes to see Bartleby in one last attempt to reason with him, but Bartleby rejects him.
Deciding to stay away from work for the next few days for fear he'll become embroiled in the new tenants' campaign to evict Bartleby, the narrator returns to find that Bartleby has been put in prison for refusal to leave the premises. At the prison, Bartleby seems even more glum than usual. He rebuffs the narrator's friendliness. Nonetheless, the narrator bribes a turnkey to make sure Bartleby stays well fed. The narrator returns a few days later to check on Bartleby, only to discover that Bartleby had died – he "preferred not to" eat and thus died from starvation.
Some time afterward, the narrator conveys a rumor that shed a brief insight into Bartleby's life. Bartleby worked in a Dead Letter Office but lost his job there. The narrator reflects that the dead letters would have made anyone of Bartleby's temperament sink into an even darker gloom. The letters are emblems for our mortality and the failure of our best intentions. Through Bartleby, the narrator has glimpsed the world as the miserable scrivener must have seen it. The closing words of the story are the narrator's resigned and pained sigh: "Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!"
[edit] Media Adaptations
The story has been adapted for film twice: once in 1970, starring Paul Scofield, and again in 2001, starring Crispin Glover.
In 2007 Chatterbox Audio Theater recorded a version of the story and made it available for free download and streaming on their website.
[edit] Influence
Although the story was not very popular at the time it was published, "Bartleby the Scrivener" has become among the most famous American short stories. It has been considered a precursor to absurdist literature, touching on many of the themes extant in the work of Franz Kafka, particularly in The Trial and "A Hunger Artist." However, there exists nothing to indicate that the German-language writer was at all familiar with Melville, who was largely forgotten until after Kafka's death.
Albert Camus explicity cites Melville as one of his key influences in a personal letter to Liselotte Dieckmann which was published in the French Review in 1998.
Spanish writer Enrique Vila-Matas wrote the award-winning novel entitled "Bartleby & Co." that creates a catalogue of the many "bartlebys" in literature: writers who gave up writing, the "Literature of No", writers who sought denial.
In contemporary political thought, writers such as Michael Hardt, Toni Negri, and Slavoj Žižek (in The Parallax View) have posited examples, based on Bartleby, of the ideal revolutionary subject in the struggle against imperialism and capitalism.
It was adapted into a play by Alexander Gelman and Company of Organic Theater Company, in Chicago Illinois. It premiered on March 16, 2007
[edit] Notes
- ^ Sten, Christopher W. "Bartleby, the Transcendentalist: Melville's Dead Letter to Emerson." Modern Language Quarterly 35 (March 1974): 30-44.
[edit] External links
- Sources
- Commentary
- A Cultural Context for "Bartleby the Scrivener"
- A bibliography of criticism relating to the story from the University of Kansas.
- A detailed explanation of the historical allusion (to the Colt-Adams murder) in the story.
- "Bartleby the Scrivener," Poe, and the Duyckinck Circle. A scholarly essay discussing Melville's allusions to Poe in the story.
- Other
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