David Sandberg has long insisted that this is a great story and, after
finally caving in and reading it despite his recommendation, I heartily
concur. Melville is, of course, best known for his epic novel Moby
Dick, but he also wrote some great short fiction, including Billy
Budd and Bartleby.
In Bartleby, he may have written one of the first significant
pieces of literature to give voice to the dehumanizing aspects of the modern
industrial compartmentalized workplace. Has there ever been a less
desirable job title than scrivener? They were employed by lawyers
to transcribe legal documents, and if that isn't inhuman enough, the office
in which Bartleby works has windows which face the brick walls of surrounding
skyscrapers. Bartleby mystifies his employer, our narrator, first
by refusing to assist in proof reading documents, averring "I would prefer
not to." But in short order he is preferring not to do most anything,
including leave the building after he is fired. Bartleby is finally
removed by the police and starves to death in the Tombs, preferring not
to eat.
Melville keeps Bartleby, like Moby Dick, shrouded in mystery.
The only explanation offered for his behavior is that he was forced to
leave his patronage job in a dead letter office when administrations changed
over. This leaves the reader free to freight Bartleby with any significance
one desires and makes him a truly haunting figure.
GRADE: A
DAVID SANDBERG'S REVIEW: In Herman Mellville's short work "Bartleby the Scrivener" we see the
first vague stirring of the coming Socialist revolution and the overthrow
of the capitalist economic model. The work is prescient and moving. We
are first introduced to the narrator - a man who proudly identifies himself
as petit bourgeois and a toad of the industry owning proletarian exploiting
classes. Indeed, in the first few paragraphs he mentions the name of John
Jacob Astor, one of the very worst of the early oligarchic exploiters of
the north American industrial revolution. The narrator feels sickeningly
pleased at Astor's encouraging and stroking comments about his dedication
and commitment to the exploitative capitalist system. A small financier
and lawyer whose legal efforts buttress the repulsive financial system
of mid 19th century New York, the narrator is intellectually unsound, ethically
bankrupt, and lost in quasi-religious middle class fantasies about his
own inherent goodness. He has toads of his own who croak to his whims and
tunes. He even belittles them for us - demonstrating the flaws of their
characters which seem far worse to him than his own terrible inadequacies.
The narrator is a small man with a small mind - lost in ledger books and
incapable of imagining a fairer and more equitable economic class system.
Then we are presented to Bartleby - a scrivener. At first Bartleby is
the perfect office drone supporting the horrendous machinations of an economic
work model which serves to denigrate the American working classes.
He is productive and servile and this pleases the weak character of the
narrator who can only thrive where his limited ideas and mentality are
not challenged by persuasive and objective truth. But then Bartleby through
some a priori channel begins to reject the system in which he is a key
part. he refuses to perform the job functions for which he was hired. At
first this rebellion is poo pooed by the narrator who dismisses it as illness
or madness. But as Bartleby's rejection of the activities of the lawyer's
office grows he becomes a threat both to the authority structure and the
ideology that surrounds it. Bartleby's righteous rejection of capitalism
is never sadly articulated but he presages socialism through his actions.
We cheer as he calmly and flatly refuses to continue with his
demeaning work functions. Bartleby is the man "ahead of his time".
Though he has no ideological training and precedes Marx and Hegel, Bartleby
senses the waves that will bring them into being in the river of history.
Once Bartleby has rejected the economic structure and challenged the
authority of his employer he must die. The employer of course wants to
feel that he is being kind and sensitive to his work - but his pseudo-kindnesses
and quixotic kindnesses and cruelties to Bartleby help to destroy him.
The narrator cannot destroy bartleby outright because he is weak and he
knows in his heart that Bartleby is right and represents the future--so
he both abandons and supports Bartleby as he is taken off to prison to
die for his sin of rejecting the capitalist system. The narrator
is the very worst kind of capitalist - intellectually soft, ideologically
despicable, and a hated supporter of the monied imperialist elite. And
yet even he, bad as he is, can see the inherent rightness and verisimilitude
of the scrivener he seeks to destroy. The narrator is Judas Iscariot, and
he knows it. We watch him destroy himself as he destroys Bartleby. The
narrator is a hypocrite and a fool. But Bartleby is very interesting. He
knows that there is
some better way of living in the world - but lacking the ideas and
education which would help him to formulate basic socialist principles
he simply refuses to carry on carrying on. He knows there is a better world
- but he cannot articulate what that world is or how it should be ordered.
And he is destroyed before he can find the rationale. Bartleby is the archetypal
socialist. We cheer him on.
I agree with JuGbUg. This review is completly ideologically driven and shows no actual evidence or understanding of the text. In my viewpoint, the story is about the human qualities and faults in both the narrator and Bartleby and not about economic models. Bartleby is, though, a symbol for passive resistance, but focusing this only on capitalism would be to undermine the power of the text.
Judging by the extremely uninformed and ideologically driven trash that litters this website, its obvious that you missed the point behind this great story by Melville. It's not surprising, because I see you've done the same with a number of other works. Thats fine, everyone is free to their own interpretation, but it just strikes me as humorous. STUDENTS BEWARE: This man is a raving fool.
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