David Sandberg has long insisted that this is a great story and, after finally caving in and reading it despite his recommendation, I heartily concur. Melville is, of course, best known for his epic novel Moby Dick, but he also wrote some great short fiction, including Billy Budd and Bartleby. In Bartleby, he may have written one of the first significant pieces of literature to give voice to the dehumanizing aspects of the modern industrial compartmentalized workplace. Has there ever been a less desirable job title than scrivener? They were employed by lawyers to transcribe legal documents, and if that isn't inhuman enough, the office in which Bartleby works has windows which face the brick walls of surrounding skyscrapers. Bartleby mystifies his employer, our narrator, first by refusing to assist in proof reading documents, averring "I would prefer not to." But in short order he is preferring not to do most anything, including leave the building after he is fired. Bartleby is finally removed by the police and starves to death in the Tombs, preferring not to eat. Melville keeps Bartleby, like Moby Dick, shrouded in mystery. The only explanation offered for his behavior is that he was forced to leave his patronage job in a dead letter office when administrations changed over. This leaves the reader free to freight Bartleby with any significance one desires and makes him a truly haunting figure. GRADE: A DAVID SANDBERG'S REVIEW:
Then we are presented to Bartleby - a scrivener. At first Bartleby is
the perfect office drone supporting the horrendous machinations of an economic
work model which serves to denigrate the American working classes.
He is productive and servile and this pleases the weak character of the
narrator who can only thrive where his limited ideas and mentality are
not challenged by persuasive and objective truth. But then Bartleby through
some a priori channel begins to reject the system in which he is a key
part. he refuses to perform the job functions for which he was hired. At
first this rebellion is poo pooed by the narrator who dismisses it as illness
or madness. But as Bartleby's rejection of the activities of the lawyer's
office grows he becomes a threat both to the authority structure and the
ideology that surrounds it. Bartleby's righteous rejection of capitalism
is never sadly articulated but he presages socialism through his actions.
We cheer as he calmly and flatly refuses to continue with his
Once Bartleby has rejected the economic structure and challenged the
authority of his employer he must die. The employer of course wants to
feel that he is being kind and sensitive to his work - but his pseudo-kindnesses
and quixotic kindnesses and cruelties to Bartleby help to destroy him.
The narrator cannot destroy bartleby outright because he is weak and he
knows in his heart that Bartleby is right and represents the future--so
he both abandons and supports Bartleby as he is taken off to prison to
die for his sin of rejecting the capitalist system. The narrator
is the very worst kind of capitalist - intellectually soft, ideologically
despicable, and a hated supporter of the monied imperialist elite. And
yet even he, bad as he is, can see the inherent rightness and verisimilitude
of the scrivener he seeks to destroy. The narrator is Judas Iscariot, and
he knows it. We watch him destroy himself as he destroys Bartleby. The
narrator is a hypocrite and a fool. But Bartleby is very interesting. He
knows that there is
(Reviewed:) Grade: (A-) Tweet Websites:-WIKIPEDIA: Herman Melville -STORY: The Town-Ho’s Story (Herman Melville, October 1851, Harper's Weekly) -PODCAST: 10 Essential Questions About Moby-Dick: From The History of Literature Podcast with Jacke Wilson (History of Literature, January 30, 2023) - - -ESSAY: 100 YEARS OF BILLY BUDD (Lafayette Lee, 3/23/24, IM1776) -ESSAY: What Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener” Tells Us About Memory Loss: Dasha Kiper on Understanding and Caring For Dementia Patients (Dasha Kiper, March 23, 2023, LitHub) -ESSAY: Melville Reborn, Again and Again: A scholar traces Herman Melville’s reputation in American and British literary circles. (Matthew Wills September 28, 2014, Jstor) -ESSAY: Ishmael’s Real Name Was Jonah: The Interpretive Key that Allows Us to See Melville’s Work as a Unified Whole (Will Hoyt, 8/29/20, University Bookman) -ESSAY: Cooking with Herman Melville (Valerie Stivers April 16, 2021, Paris Review) -ESSAY: Herman Melville and the Desolation of Solitude (Jason Katz, 11.23/20, Ploughshares) -ESSAY: Satire, Symbolism, and the “Working Through” of Historical Ghosts in The Confidence-Man (Alex McDonnell Articles, Issue 10 2020-21, Irish Journal of American Studies) - -REVIEW: of The Confidence-Man: His Masquerade By Herman Melville Edited by Hershel Parker and Mark Niemeyer (Roger K. Miller, Philadelphia Inquirer) -REVIEW: of The Value of Herman Melville, by Geoffrey Sanborn (Daniel Ross Goodman, Imaginative Conservative) -REVIEW: of Cook, Neither Believer Nor Infidel: Skepticism and Faith in Melville’s Shorter Fiction and Poetry (Zach Hutchins, Irish Journal of American Studies) - - Book-related and General Links: -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA : Your search: "herman melville" -ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA : "Melville, Herman" -ETEXTS : Herman Melville (Bartleby) -The Herman Melville Page (1819-1891) (Palo Alto College) -Melville.org : The Life and Works of Melville -Herman Melville (Academy of American Poets) -Literary Research Guide: Herman Melville (1819 - 1891) -The American Renaissance : Herman Melville (A Guide to Classic Mystery and Detection Home Page) -EXCERPT : Melville, Typee; Omoo, Mardi, Moby Dick (Section by Carl Van Doren from the Cambridge History of American Literature) -ESSAY : Being as Refusal: Melville's Bartleby as Heideggerian Anti-Hero (Louise Sundararajan, Janus Head) -ESSAY : Melville in Manhattan (J. Bottum, First Things, October 1997) -ESSAY : Melville's Magic Mountain (William T. Vollmann, Civilization, 02/01/98) -ESSAY : Our Jerusalem (Jonathan Rosen, NY Times Book Review) -ESSAY : Writers Can be Friends (Linda Bamber, NY Times Book Review) -ESSAY : COLLECTING HERMAN MELVILLE (William S. Reese, From The Gazette of the Grolier Club, 1993) -LINKS : Herman Melville (Books Unlimited uk) -ARCHIVES : "Herman Melville" (Find Articles) -REVIEW : of JOURNALS By Herman Melville. Edited by Howard C. Horsford with Lynn Horth (James D. Bloom, , NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of HERMAN MELVILLE By Elizabeth Hardwick (Erica Da Costa, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW: of Herman Melville, by Elizabeth Hardwick Another Brief and Daring Bio: Teasing, Tangled Melville Yarn (David Michaelis, NY Observer) -REVIEW: of "Herman Melville" by Elizabeth Hardwick A great critic takes on a great novelist, finding agony, homoeroticism and, ultimately, mystery (Maria Russo, Salon) -REVIEW : of Melville by Elizabeth Hardwick (Thomas Curwen, LA Times) -REVIEW : Go East, Young Man Trekking to the Holy Land. American Palestine: Melville, Twain, and the Holy Land Mania by Hilton Obenzinger (Bruce Kuklick, Books & Culture) -REVIEW : of Herman Melville A Biography. Volume 1, 1819-1851. By Hershel Parker (Paul Berman, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of MELVILLE A Biography. By Laurie Robertson-Lorant (David Kirby, NY Times Book Review) -REVIEW : of THE CIVIL WAR WORLD OF HERMAN MELVILLE By Stanton Garner (Christopher Benfey, NY Times Book Review) MOBY DICK :
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