Essay On Bartleby The Scrivener

Many people have different views on people because of the person they might transform into. In “Bartleby the Scrivener” by Melville, Bartleby begins to transform and have authority over the office. Bartleby’s influence over the office manifest itself because he is a good copyist, he weakens the narrator, and the narrator feels sorry for himself.
Bartleby is a very unusual character. Bartleby is pronounced as normal in contrast to the other two scriveners the narrator employs. The other scriveners are described as unusual characters, both suffering from unstable outbreaks that alternated as the day continued. As the narrator then introduces Bartleby, he is contrasting in his calmness to the two peculiar scriveners. The narrator is pleased to “have among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an aspect”. As Bartleby settles into his job the narrator is quite pleased with him, as “at first Bartleby did extraordinary qualities of writing…he seemed to gored himself on my documents”. However, Bartleby displays his first oddity when he refuses to examine copies at the narrator’s request. Bartleby gives no suitable reason for his resistance, he simply states “I would prefer …show more content…
This is the first example of the power Bartleby holds over the narrator. The narrator has a subliminal desire to push aside Bartleby’s wrong doings, no matter how unbalanced it would be doing exhibit the same humanity with any other employee. Bartleby is described as not having “the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinences in his manner” basically there was nothing “ordinarily human about him”. The narrator experiences significant frustration towards Bartleby, but he never takes disciplinary actions. In this, the narrator is displaying a weakness for Bartleby, a weakness manifested from the ghost like appearance that is at once fascinating and