While reading Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener,” I was drawn to consistent themes of human behavior and society, specifically with the character Bartleby. Bartleby is not explicitly portrayed as insane, but rather as an enigmatic figure. His behavior is characterized by passive resistance, which includes his common response, “I would prefer not to,” when the narrator–the lawyer–asks him to complete a task for him. At the end of the story, the lawyer ends the story with one clue he was ever able to discover about Bartleby: his past employment at the Dead Letter Office. The Lawyer wonders whether it was this job (being depressing), that drove Bartleby to his strange madness. These uncertainties beg the following question: is Bartleby actually mentally deranged, or does he just embrace individualism?
Bartleby’s actions can be interpreted in various ways. On one hand, he can represent a symbol of passive resistance against a dehumanizing work environment. In this case, his behavior would act as form of protest against societal expectations. While he may not conform to social norms, it’s not necessarily an indication of insanity. Instead, his actions challenge the norms and conventions of the time. On the other hand, Bartleby’s previous work experience at the Dead Letter Office (as the narrator had described to be a traumatic work environment) may have caused Bartleby to sink into madness.
Ultimately, because either interpretation is not identified in Melville’s work, I don’t feel particularly strong about either argument. However, I really enjoy the ambiguity Melville has introduced here, as it allows for different interpretations about the text depending solely on the reader’s perspective.
-Siena Rose
Fence-sitting is perhaps an unattractive position, but I genuinely believe this is a case where both perspectives are technically correct. As you say, passive resistance against a dehumanizing work environment is not an outright indicator of insanity, but in the context of the story and the expectations of a capitalist society, refusing to labor, to be productive, is a form of derangement in and of itself. It is unthinkable not to contribute. Not allowing yourself to participate in the poorly-oiled industrial machine makes you an instant outsider, and it is easier to think of that separation as a product of madness than to accept it as an expression of individualism in a world meant to be uniform.
Hi Siena!
I was also drawn to the ambiguity of Bartleby’s character. It was something that kept me engaged in the story because I was constantly wondering if his demeanor or answers to the narrator’s requests were going to change. I got the sense that the narrator saw something in Bartleby that was not only mental illness, but something non-human. He didn’t understand how he could only live off of ginger cakes and how he had survived this long in the world. This mysterious element is such an important aspect of this story.
Bartleby really is a puzzle. I like your point about his passive resistance being a form of protest against the working conditions of the time (I don’t think I would like copying long letters and then checking them word by word either). If we consider that the reasoning behind Bartleby’s behavior, there is something almost Emersonian about it. Bartleby is the ultimate nonconformist, he takes a position and refuses to yield to anyone else’s will. He is entirely self reliant, and only does what his true self “prefers”.