Blog Post 1, Topic 2

Benjamin Van
ENL 003
23 January 2017
Word Count: 517

Blog Post 1, Topic 2 – Bartleby’s Behavior

How Bartleby behaved throughout the story is a very reasonable response given his circumstances. Before coming to work as a scrivener at the Wall Street Law office, Bartleby worked as a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington where he would spend all day dealing with letters sent to the deceased. It is very possible that before working at the Dead Letter Office, Bartleby was “normal” and would not have acted the way he did in the story. However, it is also very possible that after years and years of working and dealing with other family’s lost loved ones, it made Bartleby very mentally unstable, prompting changes in his behavior.

Luckily for Bartleby, he was suddenly terminated from his job at the Dead Letter Office after a change in administration and soon moved to New York where he took a job as a scrivener. This new career and lifestyle for Bartleby could have been a fresh start but unfortunately, a lot of the baggage from his old job seemed to come with him.

At first, Bartleby presented to be relatively normal and appeared to be an extremely hard worker. He would be seen constantly copying notes day in and day out with not very many breaks at all. Things soon started taking turns for the worse when Bartleby denying the boss of the law firm’s requests such as reviewing copied notes or running small errands. He then stops writing altogether. It is unknown what Bartleby wants after he decides to stop writing. He was then found to be using the office’s space as his living quarters and refused to move even when the office changed locations. Soon after, Bartleby was sent to jail where he lived the final days of his life in the courtyard, starving himself to death.

Bartleby’s classic line of rejection, “I would prefer not to,” seems to be important aspect of this story as well. The words by themselves don’t blatantly reject the boss’ inquiries but the meaning behind it seems to do so. This could be a representation of the internal struggle going on in his head. The split between his old life literally in the face of death and this new “normal” life seem to be having adverse effects on him. One can only hope to imagine the emotional and psychological trauma that years and years of reading hundreds upon thousands of reading letters addressed to the dead could do to a person. Therefore, this unknown and bizarre behavior at this time could be very well justified from the nature and conditions in which Bartleby came from.

Melville wrote this story during a time where psychological illnesses were relatively unknown and unstudied. I believe that Melville was trying to shed light upon this upcoming epidemic affecting many people throughout this time. Since this era, neuroscience has progressed forward tremendously and we now know a vast amount more about such illness. If Bartleby presented with the same conditions that he did back then during our current era, he would easily be diagnosed with some sort of psychological or personality disorder.