Bartleby The Scrivener Character Analysis

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Bartleby the Scrivener, by Herman Melville, is a story of an employee who at the beginning of his employment demonstrated an exemplary work ethics. Oddly a few days into his first week, a shift in behavior moved the hard working employee to a non-cooperative, non-responsive person. For the rest of the story, as Bartleby continues his quest to be a non-team player, we discover that the focus shift from Bartleby to his manager and how he deals with this situation day in day out. To the ultimate fate of Bartleby, death. Ironically this is a manager that pride himself for playing it safe and not a risk taker, yet hiring Bartleby seems to consume his daily routine.
Through my hobby of being a lawyer, I have met many people with all kind of demeanor and personality, but none like Bartleby. “Who was a scrivener the strangest I ever saw” He is already passing his judgment to the reader on Bartleby without knowing more about the character. Indicating that he is not worth the paper is written on to describe his life story. Bartleby’s famous saying …show more content…
To solve the issue of getting the job done, he either walks way or ask the other employees to do the job. He discovered later that Bartleby was living in the office, and that he does not read, drink or dine out. And nothing is done regarding the matter, not sure what the lawyer is thinking, that the matter will resolve itself. He is feeling sorry for him, but yet no action is taken to improve the life of Bartleby, even if he refuses to accept the office, no one trying. Bartleby confesses to the manager that his vision is impaired, he gets the advice to get fresh air and make a trip to the post office, which he declines as well. Not sure if I would have stopped at that, knowing that he lives in the office with no family and social life, and with personality issue, I would have made the effort to take him to get his eyes
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