Stranger Than Fiction: Interpretations of Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street"

by Joe Wenke 

Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener:  A Story of Wall Street” has been a heavily debated short story for a number of years. Critics want to know why Bartleby is the way he is and what the story says about the lawyer who narrates it.  The narrator’s inability to supply biographical information about Bartleby makes it difficult to know what made Bartleby so strange, weird, and depressed.  Critics also wonder about the narrator.  In “Towards ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’” Milton R. Stern argues, “Melville made mirrors. . . .The critical literature concerning ‘Bartleby’ exposes the process of interpretative criticism as very often a narcissistic operation in which each reader sees the tale as a mirror of the Gestalts within his own mind” (19-20). Stern refers to readers who made the character out to be a form of themselves because of their love of themselves, or narcissism. Stern thinks that everyone tries to look too far into the fact that Bartleby acts so indifferently towards everyone, causing them to make radical explanations about why Bartleby is so out of the ordinary. The fact that Melville does not present enough information to portray the true identity of the character is what causes this proliferation of strange explanations.

Stern shows that Bartleby could be seen many ways.  He might be seen as an oppressed worker in a capitalist society. He is even seen to some as a figure of the lawyer’s conscience, a rendition of the triumph of human will, or even Christ, which is one of the more outlandish claims. The thought of Bartleby representing Christ even goes as far as saying that Turkey represents Michael, Ginger Nut represents Raphael, and that Nippers represents Lucifer, which in my opinion is a completely bogus interpretation seeing as Christ was put to death for the salvation of others. The view that Stern believes to make the most sense was that “Bartleby cannot be defined except through a definition of the lawyer,” which makes sense considering we only receive the lawyer’s perspective on Bartleby (22).

Leo Marx in “The Parable of the Walls” does not see it as a story about the lawyer, but he instead argues that the story is an autobiographical parable of Melville’s dissatisfaction with having to write to sell: “It was written in a time of deep hopelessness…it reflects Melville’s doubts about the value of his recent work” (241).  Marx explains that Melville may have used Bartleby as a character who represents his own emotions of isolation, depression, and failure. He also goes on to say that Melville’s choice of Wall Street is a symbol representing the isolation faced by Bartleby: “The walls are controlling symbols of the story, and in fact it may be said that this is a parable of walls” (241).

The lawyer can also be seen in many ways.  In “Narrative Shock in ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener,’ ‘The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids,” and ‘Benito Cereno.’” Marvin Fisher describes the narrator as somebody able to change: “Despite his limitations, he proves to be capable of considerable moral growth, even though he has to convince himself that his charity will also have some practical benefits” (437). Wyn Kelley, however, concentrates on how the lawyer’s actions towards Bartleby seemed to be more malicious and mean than anything else: “Eventually, after trying every kind of blandishment to get Bartleby to leave, the lawyer moves his offices, and the police remove Bartleby to the tomb’s prison” (105). Kelley shows only one side of the lawyer, making him out to be an awful, greedy man.

These findings are significant because there is no concrete way to figure out what Bartleby, or this whole story for that matter, really stands for. Although some of these explanations make more sense than others, there is still a sense that Melville is the only one who could really know what everything in this story means.

Do you see anything in the story that makes you feel upset?  What happens when you look at a person who seems to be crazy like Bartleby, but who also seems to be doing what he wants to do? What is your visualization of who Bartleby is and what he stands for in the eyes of Melville?

Works Cited

Fisher, Marvin, “Narrative Shock in ‘Bartleby, the Scrivener,’ ‘The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids,” and ‘Benito Cereno.’” A Companion to Herman Melville. Ed. Wyn Kelly. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006. 435-50. Print.

Kelley, Wyn.  Herman Melville:  An Introduction.  Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2008.

Marx, Leo. “Melville’s Parable of the Walls.” Melville’s Short Novels.   Ed. Dan McCall. New York:  Norton, 2002.  239-56. Print.

Stern, Milton R. “Toward ‘Bartleby the Scrivener.’” The Stoic Strain in American Literature.  Ed. Duane J. Macmillan. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1979. 19-41. Print.