Mitchell offers an interpretation that is sympathetic to the lawyer's point of view and suggests that the lawyer ultimately rejects Bartleby's nihilism, or belief in nothing.

Mitchell offers an interpretation that is sympathetic to the lawyer's point of view and suggests that the lawyer ultimately rejects Bartleby's nihilism, or belief in nothing. The lawyer's easygoing detachment—he calls himself an "eminently safe man"—represents an attempt at a calm adjustment to the Wall Street world, an adjustment which is threatened by Bartleby's implicit, and also calm, criticism of its endless and sterile routine. His routine is uncomplicated: He simply copies documents, one after the other, and at precisely 11 a.m. For Nippers, the work routine produces a daily bout of indigestion, occurring always in the morning. Turkey spends most of his money for liquor, imbibing heavily at lunch-time, presumably to induce a false blaze of life which will help him to endure but which makes him useless for work during each afternoon. Ginger Nut's father hopes that his job will one day help him enter a legal career.

Ginger Nut spends little time at his desk, the narrator says, but he is called in to help check documents for accuracy. Written during Melville's decline in popularity, "Bartleby the Scrivener" attracted little attention when it first appeared. "At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable, " was his mildly cadaverous reply. " but at this time of day his work is poor. He must have had to work efficiently and mechanically, for there is not much art in the sifting through of envelopes before destroying them. After he refuses to work any longer, he becomes a kind of parasite on the lawyer, but the exact nature of his dependence on the lawyer remains mysteriously vague. At first the lawyer pities Bartleby's state of loneliness, but upon reflection his feelings turn to fear and repulsion. Bartleby the Scrivener" was written by Herman Melville in 1853 and was first published in Putnam's Magazine in the November/December issue of that year.

Many critics of "Bartleby the Scrivener" have attempted to psychoanalyze the title character. The narrator is now completely nonplussed: what "reasonable objection," he wonders, can Bartleby have to speak to him. Henri Bergson remarks that the surest way to attain the truth is by perception and intuition, by reasoning to a certain point, then by taking a "mortal leap." The narrator, however, can go only so far as reason takes him. Then, at the end of another week, the narrator believes he will never again hear any more about Bartleby. Typically, Melville forces his readers to consider his characters and events from more than one perspective. By constructing multiple layers of possible meaning within his story, Melville frustrates those readers who seek an obvious message. The other scrivener, who goes by the nickname Nippers, is younger and considered overly ambitious by the narrator. Everyday life has become ritualized and repetitive for Turkey, Nippers, and Bartleby.

Nippers is the nickname of the younger scrivener in the law office. Bartleby actually lives in the law offices of his employer. The lawyer begs Bartleby to cooperate and be reasonable, but Bartleby responds that he prefers not to be reasonable. Bartleby has a tendency to stare blankly at the wall, lost in what the lawyer calls "a dead-wall reverie." Bartleby seems to feel imprisoned in his life, and it is significant that he eventually dies in prison. The wall in "Bartleby" symbolizes the human condition in the society within which Bartleby feels trapped, and by extension the burden of his own identity within the limitations of such a society. Edwards, a Puritan, espoused a form of determinism arguing that a human being cannot act in contradiction to the will of God. It is not philosophically profound, but it is undeniably human. Melville thus places the reader in much the same position as the lawyer in the story. The works of Herman Melville are famous for being deliberately ambiguous, or unclear. In 1832, when Herman was twelve, his father died, leaving the Melville family heavily burdened by debt.

By finally leaving questions of ultimate meaning unresolved, the lawyer restores his own faith through a simple expression of empathy for Bartleby's suffering. "Bartleby, the Scrivener." He describes the activities, or rather perhaps the lack of activities, of a simple clerk in the office of a lawyer. The lawyer in turn finds himself unable to take decisive action regarding Bartleby's behavior, opting to procrastinate in hopes that the problem will solve itself. Also, the lawyer never considers the mind-numbing monotony of copying legal documents as a cause of his scriveners' eccentricities. Bartleby refuses to go, remaining silent in the office. Write an informative essay describing the purpose and functions of the dead-letter office. The office is located on Wall Street, and its windows look out onto walls on all sides. Leo Marx takes these images to represent the wall of death. Literary analysis on bartleby the scrivener. For a time he accepts this since Bartleby seems harmless, but eventually his presence is harmful to the lawyer's practice. The truth was, Isuppose, that a man withsosmall an income,could not afford tosportsuch a lustrous face and a lustrouscoat at one and thesame time.

 

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