The narrator is the creator of the story as we read it, making all of his lamentations and descriptions the only descriptions we receive, and his lacking descriptions of Bartleby are the reflection of how little the narrator understood about Bartleby, yet through these descriptions readers can also decipher that Bartleby made his own choices and understood them completely, shifting his role away from being a victim. The narrator begins with hefty descriptions of every single topic of his life except Bartleby. Once the story develops Melville interjects lengthy mental narrations by the narrator, which highlight his puzzled distress at the options Bartleby is suppling him, developing how the narrator acts far more charitable than the average
