2/19/08

The reading that we had over the weekend, Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street,” was very interesting. Melville’s writing is extremely detailed and he takes a lot of time to describe just about every part of a scene so the reader can get a really good picture of the situations that take place in and around the Lawyer’s office. The length at which he goes into describing the moods of Turkey and Nippers is astounding, but it creates a very slow pace for the story to move along at. The story of Bartleby is one that I do not quite know how to interpret. The character of Bartleby enters the story and does great work for the Lawyer but refuses to examine the papers. His constant refusal of “I would prefer not to” seems just a little insubordinate at first, but soon it becomes a central phrase to the story as the Lawyer cannot stop thinking about the reason behind Bartleby’s words. As the story progresses, these words become engrained into each of the characters’ speech as they hear them so regularly from Bartleby. As to what Herman Melville was trying to say or represent by the refusals of Bartleby, I do not have much of an idea. I ended up looking this story up online and most critics disagree as to what is the correct interpretation of “Bartleby, the Scrivener.” Some believe that it deals with the depression and job dissatisfaction of the middle class. The view that I find most interesting is one that says the story is somewhat related to Melville’s personal life. According to this theory, Bartleby represents the author while the Lawyer is the average reader. Melville had success with certain books, but he preferred to write stories like Moby Dick, which were more contemplative, while the reader asked him to generate more stories of the other kind.