Bartleby The Scrivener Character Analysis

Bartleby the Scrivener, by Herman Melville, is a story of an employee who only performs the basic tasks required for his job. Bartleby begins his employment demonstrating exemplary work ethics. However, two days into his employment Bartleby shifts from an employee willing to pitch in as needed to a non-cooperative, non-responsive person. The remainder of the story Bartleby continues performing only required tasks refusing to take on additional work. Bartleby and his manager are able to find their own harmony of coexisting in a work atmosphere of chaos. Ironically, Bartley’s manager prides himself for playing it safe and not being a risk taker, yet the consequences of not firing Bartleby seemed to consume his daily routine.
The narrator describes how odd and strange Bartleby comparing to others in his field, that are none resembles Bartleby. “Who was a scrivener the strangest I ever saw”. This quote from the narrator is already passing his judgment to the reader about Bartleby prior to exploring his character. The narrator also implies that Bartleby is not worth the paper written on to describe his life story.
Bartleby’s famous saying is “I would prefer not to”. Bartley’s manager is absolutely clueless on how to react upon hearing this response from his …show more content…
Being compassionate is great, can’t just feel sorry for a human being and walk away. An effort needs to be made to rectify and improve the situation if possible, and clearly as a lawyer that seemed to be successful could have easily provided assistance. Maybe the manager is indirectly helping him by allowing him to reside in the office as his way of lending a hand. Disturbing that in order to not be inconvenient handling Bartleby’s situation he chose to move to another office and have the new tenant deal with Bartleby, this is