Postscript to "Bartleby the Scrivener"

Herman Melville in an 1861 photo

Participants in last week's discussion on "Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville offered a range of perspectives on this enigmatic short story.  I was particularly taken with one member's recollection of working for the B. Altman department store in New York in the 1940's. She described a throng of middle-aged men, many still sporting their green office visors, who came pouring out of the Altman's back offices at the end of the day.

Melville may have written almost 100 years earlier, however the class of men depicted in "Bartleby the Scrivener" is the same. They are clerical workers in the era before office automation. They copy documents, count money, keep books.

"Bartleby the Scrivener" portrays alienation in the workplace because of the repetitive, seemingly meaningless work many human beings do in their jobs day in and day out. Given economic necessity and a need in every society to preserve a status quo, this alienation becomes a taboo subject.

When I started my professional career, I worked for a number of years for scientific publishing concerns in Manhattan. I can remember discussing Melville's short story with co-workers. Bartleby's attitude (encapsulated in his famous rebuke to his boss when given the task of comparison copy reading : "I prefer not to.") resonated for us, for we were young men contemplating our future financial prospects and the quality of work life that went with them.

The one redeeming grace of the story, which keeps it from being a total "downer," is the growth in the narrator's compassion for Bartleby. At one point he offers to take Bartleby into his home, and at the end of the story he visits Bartleby at the Tombs prison in lower Manhattan and tries to arrange with a Mr. Cutlets (!) for him to receive better quality food. It is too late, however, for Bartleby is already asleep "with kings and counselors."

In the final analysis, the narrator and Bartleby have what can be described as an "impossible relationship." Bartleby simply cannot be helped. The famous last line of the piece, which the narrator tellingly intones in the vocative case, is "Ah Bartleby, Ah Humanity".  Is it uttered as a sigh of resignation, a cry of rebellion, or the voice of compassion?