Heinrich Heine University, Düsseldorf

2002/03

“Reactions to Bartleby‘s formula.
A reading of text and critics“

by

 Sebastian B. Goetzke

Contents

Introduction 3

1. General overview about Melville and his short novels 4

2. Bartleby 5
2.1 Bartleby: Context and sequence of events 5
2.2 Bartleby’s formula 7
2.3 The clerks’ reactions to his formula 9
2.4 The lawyer’s reaction to his formula 11
2.5 Other people’s reactions 15

3. Critics 17
3.1 Bartleby: Christlike? Biblical phrases and connotations in the text 17
3.2 “Parable of the Walls”? 19
3.3 Other Interpretations 21

Conclusion. Bartleby in today’s world? 22

Selected Bibliography, Sources 24

Introduction

Almost everyone has heard of the novel “Moby Dick”. Less people though know that it was Herman Melville who wrote the world famous best-seller. Yet even less people can name other books and stories written by the American. One important story cycle he published in 1856 is called “The Piazza Tales” and it includes the short novels “Bartleby, The Scrivener”, “Billy Budd” and “Benito Cerone”.

This paper deals with the first one.
In the process of my work I will try to present a short overview about the story and give a brief summary. Nevertheless it is assumed that the reader of this paper is already familiar with the text.
I will focus on the formula “I prefer not to” which Bartleby frequently uses as his only way to communicate with his environment. In a first step I will examine the influence that the usage of this formula has on the lawyer. Furthermore I will present the reactions of the office clerks and of other people to this phrase.

The second part of this paper then is devoted to the opinions and interpretations of famous Melville critics who put the weight of their argumentation on very contradictory points. This criticism is essential in order to understand the story. In traditional forms Bartleby is “unreadable”. The text becomes meaningful, framed and structured only by taking account of the according criticism. Of course, there are many and very different ways to criticize the story. I though think that dealing with the famous phrase is the form of interpretation that is closest to the text and therefore the most easily to follow. With all these critical views and opinions, including my own argumentation, I will show that Bartleby never had a chance to survive. His chosen style of living just did not fit into the world back in these days. Does it today? I will come back to this thesis in the end and try to find an answer.

1. General overview about Melville and his short novels

Herman Melville was born in 1819 into a socially connected New York family. ¹ Soon after the death of his father in 1832 he had to earn money for his family. He worked as a clerk and started writing, nevertheless had to focus on his jobs primarily. In 1839 he shipped out as a cabin boy on a merchant ship sailing to Liverpool. He abandoned the sea only shortly in order to look for other jobs, though not finding any he returned to the water on a whaler sailing on a voyage through the South Seas in 1841. His adventures in French Polynesia became subject of his first novel “Typee” (1846). He spent three years on various ships, whalers and military frigates until he returned to the East Coast, to Boston, in October 1844. Melville started to write down his memories and published his first books. “Moby Dick”, his most famous work, was finally published in London in October 1851 and a month later in America, but it brought its author neither acclaim nor reward.

As I mentioned in the introduction “Bartleby, The Scrivener” is one part of the story collection “The Piazza Tales”, Melville published in 1856.
“Bartleby” however already appeared three years earlier in Putnam’s Monthly Magazine with the subtitle “A Story of Wall Street”.

“By 1853 Melville had published seven books (including Moby Dick), but “Bartleby”, published late in that year, was his first attempt at a short story.”² Soon after finishing “The Piazza Tales” Melville turned away from fiction and started to compose only poetry. Nearing his death in 1891 he eventually returned to story-telling and wrote his classic “Billy Budd”. 1

2. Bartleby

2.1 Bartleby: Context and Sequence of Events

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1 Biographical information from (2) and: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~HYPER/bb/hm_bio.html

2 This and all subsequent quotations in the paper refer to: