Having read the story, it becomes understandable that not much is known about the main character. The work in the department of dead letters had killed all emotions in him, and this was the reason for the separation from the inner world. “Pardon for those who died depressing hope for those who died unhoping” (Booth 189) are the words that may symbolize Bartleby’s attitude to life. The author tries to explain the meaning of the whole story at the end by the information about these dead letters. Reading and sorting the letters of dead people is rather a depressive job to do, and the author may try to show that work at that office was the breaking moment in the layer’s life (Booth 188). The layer’s previous work in the Office of Dead Letters is aimed to hint at why his behavior is so strange, why there is a desire to separate from the surrounding world. The other symbol in the story, the dead letters, is as if explaining the scrivener’s strange behavior at the very end of the story. Bartleby separated himself from people, he did not communicate with anybody. The symbol of walls in the story is that all Bartlebys’ life was concentrated inside that room and that division from the whole society was present. The buildings on the streets were situated in such a way that most of the windows looked on the walls of the near building (Booth 164). Capitalism, and its effect on society, are shown through Wall Street and the citizens of this street. Wall Street is the symbol of the whole of New York’s life, when the atmosphere in offices is friendly, while the whole environment is isolative, if not hostile. Wall Street also symbolizes the development of capitalism in that society. The street, where Bartleby works are situated on Wall Street, which was the center of the business and financial life of New York when the story was written. The core fact is that the word “wall” is of two meanings, direct and indirect. The subtle insights which give the unnamed narrator no peace also grip the reader in a perplexing examination of the nature and purpose of charity.Considering the wall as the symbol in the story, it should be stressed that the other title of the story is “A Story of Wall-street” (Booth 164). The humanistic theme, which ties one of life's winners inextricably to the pathetic demise of a loser, relegates the two central characters to a single fraternity, their shared belonging in the family of humankind. Throughout Bartleby's emotional illness, it is sheer will that supplants the necessary parts of his personality that atrophy during his tenure at the Wall Street office. Suggesting the author's own obstinacy, the main character replies to all comers, "I would prefer not to," thereby declaring his independence from outside intervention.Ĭharacterized as a symbolic fable of self-isolation and passive resistance to routine, "Bartleby, the Scrivener" reveals the decremental extinction of a human spirit. One of the most obtuse of these short works, "Bartleby, the Scrivener," subtitled "A Story of Wall-Street," was published for $85 in Putnam's magazine in November and December 1853 its focus is on the dehumanization of a copyist, the nineteenth-century equivalent of a photocopy machine. For the sake of economy and speed, his output dwindled from the full-length novel to the short story, a stylistic constriction with which he never developed ease. The gems hidden among lengthy, digressive passages required more concentrative effort than readers were capable of or willing to put forth.Ĭhallenged to delve into the perplexities of morality, Melville avoided the more obvious superficialities and plunged determinedly into greater mysteries. His readers, accustomed to the satisfying rough and tumble of his sea yarns, were unable to make the leap from straightforward adventure tale to probing fiction. Pierre, his first published work after Moby-Dick, with its emphasis on incest and moral corruption, exemplifies his decision to change direction. Like his letters, Melville's style became tortuous and demanding his themes questioned the nature of good and evil and what he perceived as upheaval in universal order. Instead, he cultivated a more spiritual language to express the darker, enigmatic side of the soul. With the publication of Moby-Dick, he grew disenchanted with his attempt to please the general reader. The turning point of his career came in 1851. Like many artists, Melville felt constrained to choose between art and money.
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