Bartleby The Scrivener Passage Analysis

An eerie, hushed office is a place where most employees would not enjoy working, but Bartleby and a few others from Bartleby the Scrivener, by Herman Melville, are more like described as introverted types of persons. Throughout the short story, the reader gets the vibe that the narrative is going to be a gloomy tale about a miserable life of documentation and filing. Bartleby is describes as a man of few words and who keeps to himself. The work place of Bartleby is a common environment for him to be found in throughout the short story. “At one end they looked upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious sky-light shaft, penetrating the building from top to bottom. This view might have been considered rather tame …show more content…
By having a white wall that is enjoyable to look at shows that the narrator could be one of two types of people, a reserved person or a very imaginative person like the painter he describes. Continuing on in the passage: “In that direction my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade; which wall required no spy-glass to bring out its lurking beauties, but for the benefit of all near-sighted spectators, was pushed up within ten feet of my window panes.” (Melville 871)
Bartleby’s office space has a very isolated feel to it in a way that others would not want to be around him. Having a white wall on one side and brick, aged wall on the other side does not sound appealing to most people who have a career in a field sure as Bartleby’s. Most others who are scriveners are in a room surrounded by a small crowd of people who are all accomplishing the same tasks as one another. In Bartleby’s case, he would much rather be in his own area not bothering anyone else and copying documents from one paper to …show more content…
When the narrator comes back from his trip and finds out that Bartleby has gone to jail he goes to visit him. While the narrator is visiting Bartleby, the guards do not even mind that Bartleby is just walking around the prison yard without restraints on. Since the narrator was unable to cheer up Bartleby or get a word out of him, the narrator decides to leave. After a few days of not seeing Bartleby the narrator visits and finds Bartleby curled in a ball, all alone, dead. This is a sense that shows yet again that Bartleby enjoyed being alone with his thoughts and ideas. Also it shows that because no one was aware of Bartleby’s previous life before the law firm, no one was able to understand Bartleby’s thoughts and reasoning behind his actions. If anyone were aware of his previous job, for instants the narrator would have been able to better understand why Bartleby would isolate himself the way that he had. Working with letters that are no longer going to a person can put a strain on someone and effect how he or she interacts with the rest of the