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Bartelby

            
             Bartleby was a very interesting character. It is difficult to imagine being so alone in the world that you have to live where you work. Not only his behavior but the things he said made me uncomfortable. His words did not fit in with his plan to stay and live there. He even refused to continue the work he was hired to do. There was always something about Bartleby that made him seem not human. .
             The boss on the other hand was not reacting to Bartleby as one would expect a boss to react. Perhaps Bartleby knew he would react like that; the boss was also lenient with his other two scriveners. Maybe Bartleby chose this man for that reason. Bartleby could have easily observed the behaviors of the other two men that worked there. When he was hired he performed as the perfect employee, this would gain the bosses trust. Then when the boss asked something of Bartleby he tested the water and said in a very polite and pleasant manner that he would prefer not to. The more he would push the boss the more he found he could get a way with. .
             Bartleby's behavior is not normal for a human. The way he entered the office for the first time, he was motionless. Even the way he always spoke in the same monotone voice. His meals were always small and quick. Even the boss described him as a ghost. .
             The way he continued to roam around the office building after his employer moved was a little creepy. He would refuse every suggestion the boss made to him for employment and yet continued to insist he was not very particular. Even to say that he would not like a clerkship because it was too much confinement is ridiculous because he was in that confined office all the time. He also refused to eat dinner at the prison and eventually starved himself. .
             The boss suggested to himself that maybe they were brought together by the fates. This is very possible; the boss is the only man I could imagine putting up with all of Bartleby's craziness.


Essays Related to Bartelby

1. BARTELBY

... Basically, he lets his employees do whatever they want to and does not use his authority to get what he wants out of them. The story started off with Bartelby being one of the best writers. However, when he is asked to make copies of something, he simply replies with "I"d prefer not to." Since the boss shows ... no authority, he allows Bartelby to get away with it, angering some of the other workers. As the story progresses, we find out that Bartelby prefers not to do much of anything besides write and starts to make the workplace like his home. Although ... ask him about his life and ...

  • Word Count: 497
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2. Bartelby The scrivener

... The Real Story Greetings reader, I am Bartelby. You may remember me from that terrible story about me told by that nameless narrator, he completely twisted the story to make himself look good. I can't believe that he told ... I would be out of housing. I asked "Kind sir, why are you attempting to sell the building? If you sell it, I will have no where to sleep." He replied rather rapidly, "Bartelby!" he screamed "You have no idea how much of my time and money you have wasted. I am selling the building so that I can escape the diseased cloud you have brought ... ...

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3. The Piazza Tales

... work. He also would say "I prefer not to," to anything that the narrator told him to do. Like to check his work, Page 7 Bartelby would never do this her would just copy the paper. It was like Bartelby was the boss and the Narrator was his copyist. Melville was born August 1, 1819, in New York City, into a family that had declined in ... ...

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4. The Diversity of American Thought

... here to-day, is with the present. The accepted time with God and his cause is the ever living now."(Douglass 2106). Additional pieces in our reading, such as Melville's Bartelby the Scrivner and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown, indicate early American writers' ability and willingness to question the troubling things they witnessed among the society in which they lived. In ... ...

  • Word Count: 1162
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5. Bartleby

... at all. Within three feet of the pains was a wall." (pg 110-111) This quotation demonstrates Bartleby's total isolation from society, for even his window, usually a form of escape, traps Bartelby behind another wall, which thus reinforces absolute isolation. Ultimately, every aspect of Bartleby's life further expounds upon the motif of solitude. Bartalby's attempt to exercise his freewill eventually leads him ... ...

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6. Bartelby

The Legend of Bartleby "Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance." (13) This is so because there is nothing a rational person can do to combat a passive message. Should a group of people decide not to eat until their government complies with their demands, the government will feel the need to comply from a humanitarian stand point. There is nothing else that the government can do to prevent the death of its citizens and that would simply be unacceptable in the global spectrum of sociological science. The problem with passive resistance, however, is its failure to be reco...

  • Word Count: 1306
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7. Bartleby, The Scrivener

... becoming a part of both him and his colleague's vocabulary, which seems to be a turn for the worse. Melville's wonderful use of imagery through his description of the duties performed by Bartelby and his comrades displays the loss of independence and the boredom of the work in which they are employed. The description of the office is very depressing, and the landscape ... ...

  • Word Count: 594
  • Approx Pages: 2
  • Grade Level: Undergraduate

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