Bartelby

There is but one lawyer working this firm but he is bent on success and success means high productivity. By following a vocational rubric that could have been taken from The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin, the narrator voiced his desire to thrive in the very beginning of the text and even told the readers that the most beneficial part of his job as a Master of Chancellery for the State of New York was the increased business that his private office incurred. Unlike Franklin, however, the narrator does not distinguish between the true and the useful. He even expels himself before Bartleby is forcefully removed from his office. Bartleby became useless as soon as he decided not to write anymore. At that point, .
             "With any other man I [the narrator] should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence. But there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but, in a wonderful manner, touched and disconcerted me." (Melville, 11).
             Bartleby, however, had become such a fixture in his office, and therefore his life, that simply dismissing him or having the police take him away would not have been an acceptable means of separation for the narrator. Could Bartleby have been that unusual that something in his being, some distant echo in the scrivener's sole, was too much for his employer to bear?.
             It is not surprising that Bartleby's style of resistance did so much to the narrator's psyche. Here was a man accustomed to instant compliance, or at least the next best sort of compliance that the trio of Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut could offer. He is, after all, the supreme being in Melville's miniature social order. To be confronted by something like Bartleby's dissention after only having to deal with the shallow antics of the original assistants would be considered culture shock to most people.