Jul 19, 2023·edited Jul 19, 2023Liked by Mari, the Happy Wanderer
These are wonderful analyses, Mari — thanks so much for putting all this together. It was a delight to read.
I do think it’s ultimately a philosophical story — a story about how to live — albeit perhaps one without a clear resolution. The narrator says on the first page that he has always believed that the easiest way of life is the best. Melville being as careful as any Save-the-Cat screenwriter in his planting of story clues, I think that philosophical position is the one that Bartleby‘a presence challenges.
The narrator has an easy life. He isn’t idle, but he has maneuvered himself into a position where he is comfortable and secure. He is not greedy or stingy — a comfortable life is enough for him, and unlike, say, Scrooge, he uses his means to make others comfortable, too, although they are not especially deserving. The narrator is routinely generous and forbearing with his clerks (his offer of a coat to Turkey is partly self-interested, but partly kind, too), and the scene where he tries (and fails) to convince Turkey to go to half-days really prefigures his later struggles with Bartleby.
The narrator, then, is a rationalist. He attempts to get the most ease and comfort for himself and those around him for the least amount of work. As long as they all obey the rules (there are multiple references to the narrator’s expectation of obedience and deference from the clerks— and he himself is comically deferential to and admiring of his betters, like John Jacob Astor), they can all have plenty. (This is why he is so angry about the amendment to the New York Constitution that eliminates the Master of Chancery position — society has changed the rules on him midstream, which strikes him as unfair and not in keeping with the rule of easygoing patronage that he strives to live by.)
Bartleby, on the other hand, is completely unsatisfied with this life. There is nothing in it for him. The dead letter office, full of the evidence of pointless life-effort that accomplished nothing and reached no one, perhaps reflects his view of the narrator’s easy life.
At first Bartleby rebels in a small way, by trying to do even LESS than the rather small amount that is demanded of him. As he goes further along, his actions become a terrible parody of the narrator’s own search for an easy life. How much can he take, for how little effort? Can he refuse to do the work the other clerks do? Can he essentially steal a man’s office? At each stage, he takes something from someone else — until finally he becomes the responsibility of the state, which is to say, his entire living becomes dependent on other people and he does no labor at all. But he doesn’t frame it that way for himself; for him, each decision is simply an expression of a negative preference. He perceives himself as simply doing less and less, while in reality he is taking more and more. But in the end, having studiously taken from everyone possible through his nihilistic inaction, there is no one left to take from except himself. And so his final theft by inaction, his final and ultimate act of ease-seeking, is to take his own life from himself.
Bartleby, to me, tests the narrator’s rational point of view by pushing it to an absurd extreme. Yes, the narrator too gets his living from the taxes of the public, but he provides at least SOME service in return. There are references to him appearing in court and hearing cases, so he does SOMETHING, even if it is an easy sinecure. But Bartleby pushes the logic of the easy life to its absolute end — and discovers, there, the end of life itself. The narrator wisely doesn’t follow him there. But he is disturbed by Bartleby nonetheless, because he sees in him a profound, almost Nietzschean challenge to his own life of more moderate leisure-seeking. The narrator believes there is a way for us all to live easily through an orderly social system of patronage and charitable indulgence. Bartleby calls into question whether that is how a human being can really live.
Oh wow, thank you for sharing your very thought-provoking interpretation! You rightly note that passive resistance can be very aggressive, especially when taken to Bartleby’s extremes. And you also point to another possible happy ending: What if Bartleby had just continued copying documents, instead of quitting altogether? I’m sued the Narrator would have accommodated him, as he does with Turkey. But, as you note, Bartleby is taking more and more as the situation escalates.
Ha! And I have always thought that Bartleby would be a perfect name for a basset hound! Maybe my future basset Bartleby and your future cat Bartleby will be friends. Or maybe they would prefer not to.
These are wonderful analyses, Mari — thanks so much for putting all this together. It was a delight to read.
I do think it’s ultimately a philosophical story — a story about how to live — albeit perhaps one without a clear resolution. The narrator says on the first page that he has always believed that the easiest way of life is the best. Melville being as careful as any Save-the-Cat screenwriter in his planting of story clues, I think that philosophical position is the one that Bartleby‘a presence challenges.
The narrator has an easy life. He isn’t idle, but he has maneuvered himself into a position where he is comfortable and secure. He is not greedy or stingy — a comfortable life is enough for him, and unlike, say, Scrooge, he uses his means to make others comfortable, too, although they are not especially deserving. The narrator is routinely generous and forbearing with his clerks (his offer of a coat to Turkey is partly self-interested, but partly kind, too), and the scene where he tries (and fails) to convince Turkey to go to half-days really prefigures his later struggles with Bartleby.
The narrator, then, is a rationalist. He attempts to get the most ease and comfort for himself and those around him for the least amount of work. As long as they all obey the rules (there are multiple references to the narrator’s expectation of obedience and deference from the clerks— and he himself is comically deferential to and admiring of his betters, like John Jacob Astor), they can all have plenty. (This is why he is so angry about the amendment to the New York Constitution that eliminates the Master of Chancery position — society has changed the rules on him midstream, which strikes him as unfair and not in keeping with the rule of easygoing patronage that he strives to live by.)
Bartleby, on the other hand, is completely unsatisfied with this life. There is nothing in it for him. The dead letter office, full of the evidence of pointless life-effort that accomplished nothing and reached no one, perhaps reflects his view of the narrator’s easy life.
At first Bartleby rebels in a small way, by trying to do even LESS than the rather small amount that is demanded of him. As he goes further along, his actions become a terrible parody of the narrator’s own search for an easy life. How much can he take, for how little effort? Can he refuse to do the work the other clerks do? Can he essentially steal a man’s office? At each stage, he takes something from someone else — until finally he becomes the responsibility of the state, which is to say, his entire living becomes dependent on other people and he does no labor at all. But he doesn’t frame it that way for himself; for him, each decision is simply an expression of a negative preference. He perceives himself as simply doing less and less, while in reality he is taking more and more. But in the end, having studiously taken from everyone possible through his nihilistic inaction, there is no one left to take from except himself. And so his final theft by inaction, his final and ultimate act of ease-seeking, is to take his own life from himself.
Bartleby, to me, tests the narrator’s rational point of view by pushing it to an absurd extreme. Yes, the narrator too gets his living from the taxes of the public, but he provides at least SOME service in return. There are references to him appearing in court and hearing cases, so he does SOMETHING, even if it is an easy sinecure. But Bartleby pushes the logic of the easy life to its absolute end — and discovers, there, the end of life itself. The narrator wisely doesn’t follow him there. But he is disturbed by Bartleby nonetheless, because he sees in him a profound, almost Nietzschean challenge to his own life of more moderate leisure-seeking. The narrator believes there is a way for us all to live easily through an orderly social system of patronage and charitable indulgence. Bartleby calls into question whether that is how a human being can really live.
Oh wow, thank you for sharing your very thought-provoking interpretation! You rightly note that passive resistance can be very aggressive, especially when taken to Bartleby’s extremes. And you also point to another possible happy ending: What if Bartleby had just continued copying documents, instead of quitting altogether? I’m sued the Narrator would have accommodated him, as he does with Turkey. But, as you note, Bartleby is taking more and more as the situation escalates.
Matt Taibbi & Walter Kirn have a weekly short story discussion at Racket News on their podcast, "America This Week."
Thanks to Mari I'll look super smart. Tomorrow's story (episode 49) is “Bartleby the Scrivener.”
https://www.racket.news/s/america-this-week
Thanks for the link! I will check it out!
If I get another cat, I'm going to name him Bartleby.
Ha! And I have always thought that Bartleby would be a perfect name for a basset hound! Maybe my future basset Bartleby and your future cat Bartleby will be friends. Or maybe they would prefer not to.