Emily Daly looks at books that make us question the world around us and what we can do to change it.

Though best known for his epic whaling novel Moby-Dick, Herman Melville is also remembered for his short story, Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. Published in 1853, the tale is narrated by a rather pompous but good natured lawyer who runs a small law firm on the most famous street in the world – Wall Street. His three employees are so predictable that they are given nicknames which summarise their personalities: the red-faced Turkey, the irritable Nippers, and the young messenger boy Ginger Nut. But the narrator’s smug insight into his employees’ eccentricities is deeply challenged upon the arrival of a fourth worker, Bartleby.

The worker
Bartleby is hired as a scrivener. Before the days of copy and paste it was the job of a scrivener to make copies of legal documents with pen and ink. The work was long, painstaking and dull. Sometimes documents of more than 500 pages had to be copied out multiple times. At first Bartleby is an enthusiastic worker, churning out documents in mechanical fashion. However, he quickly cuts down on his work until eventually he seems to do little more than stare out the viewless office window. Whenever he is asked to complete a task, Bartleby replies every time with a mild, “I would prefer not to”. The narrator is utterly unnerved by this response. Although he feels compassion for the enigmatic Bartleby he is eventually forced to abandon him. He moves his business to a different building when the scrivener takes to occupying his office day and night.

Occupy Wall Street
Over 150 years later, Occupy Wall Street (2011), a protest movement against global economic inequality picked up Bartleby’s signature phrase “I would prefer not to” as their tag-line. The movement was certainly indebted to Bartleby, the very first occupier of Wall Street, a street which has become synonymous with money, power, and ruthless capitalism. In Bartleby, Melville provides an interesting critique of early capitalist America in which Bartleby’s spiritual death occurs long before he physically dies. However, it is also impossible to imagine Bartleby joining in the 2011 Occupy Wall Street movement. I’m sure that if he was told to come along and wave a flag he “would prefer not to”.

Bartleby is the ultimate outsider who we will never fully understand. This sense of mystery is responsible for the enduring popularity of the story among scholars and casual readers alike. Perhaps Melville’s masterpiece not only reflects upon the dangers of capitalism but also totalitarianism of any kind.

 

Photo by Rafa Luque via Flickr. 

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