In his analysis of Melville’s Bartleby Mr. Liao presents his view of Bartleby’s estrangement from society. Mr. Liao believes that Bartleby’s alienation was due solely to “society’s lack of tolerance for social deviance.” This is simply not the case. In the story Bartleby is not directly hindered by society’s unwillingness to accept, quite the contrary. The narrator/society makes every possible attempt to accommodate Bartleby’s peculiarities but Bartleby consistently chosen to rejects this assistance.
Mr. Liao asserts that individuals not conforming to the “common mold” are removed forcibly. This statement is completely fallacious, and is guilty of an egregious error by omitting the Narrators repeated attempts to assist Bartleby, not by forcing him to conform but by allowing him to persist with what he
“prefers” to do. Bartleby is allowed to stay in society even after his absolute refusal to contribute anything to it. Even when sent to prison he maintains his repudiation of society by abstaining from even the most fundamental actions of being human, specifically, eating. Bartleby was never “forcibly removed” by society, he simply removed himself.
Mr. Liao concludes his paper by stating that the Narrator “barters what he considers morally right… in exchange for what society considers right…” The Narrator did not sell out his moral convictions by leaving Bartleby, but merely understood that it is impossible to help those that refuse to help themselves. Mr. Liao depicts society as the cause of Bartleby’s death for failing to alter its standards to meet Bartleby’s idiosyncrasies, portraying society as some malevolent force bent o
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