Bartleby is described as completely emotionless. He wrote on silently, palely and mechanically, at first when he wrote. He is also described as a ghost. It should be pointed out that the narrator’s problems with his other employees have to do with their unreliability, sloppiness and flaring tempers. Turkey and Nippers are quite the opposite of Bartleby, yet the main conflict that “Bartleby the Scrivener” presents is an internal problem. The narrator cannot deal with someone who appears to be void of any human attributes.
In the descriptions of Turkey and Nippers, there is some sort of organic mechanization in the way they work, and how their temperaments change: “Their fits relieved each other, like guards. When Nipper’s was on, Turkey’s was off; and vice versa”. “Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity! ” is the closing sentence in Melville’s short story “Bartleby the Scrivener”. It is a strong claim about what it means to act according to a certain concept of humanness.
The author may be saying that it is human nature to have faults; however losing the ability to emote and connect with one’s surrounding world is perhaps the greatest tragedy an individual could go through or witness. Bartleby’s story is of a human tragedy. Initially, Bartleby arrives at the narrator’s law practice, seeking employment from an advertisement the lawyer had put out. Everything starts normal; Bartleby, the new guy, shows up at an already-established office, and immediately gets to work.
Nothing too weird exhibits itself, and though Bartleby is oddly quiet, the Narrator finds this a relief, compared to the eccentricities of his clerks Nippers, Turkey and Ginger Nut. After Bartleby’s arrival, business seem to go on as usual for a little while, at least. In the third day Bartleby build has been a solid employee until he says “prefers not to” examine a paper with the Narrator, who is the lawyer and owner of the law firm, refusing to obey the order. Everyone is puzzled except for Bartleby himself. He continues to “prefer not to” do anything but copy documents, even when the smallest favors are asked of him.
Eventually, Bartleby just stops working at all. This gives the Narrator reason to fire him, which he attempts to do. However, Bartleby prefers not to leave the ing, and continues to live there, which ends up scaring out clients and visitors. Again, Bartleby’s motives are totally obscure and leaves us readers to wonder why he prefers to stay i an uncomfortable environment. Unable to get rid of Bartleby, the Narrator moves to another building. When the scrivener just won’t leave, the Narrator picks up and moves his whole practice to another building, just to get away from Bartleby.
This is, admittedly, a pretty wussy and really impractical way to “resolve” the problem. Bartleby continues to haunt the lawyer’s old office. Bartleby continues to stare at the wall and his resistant behavior even when a new law practice moves in. After all the many attempts the lawyer who even offered his home for Bartleby to stay, Bartleby is taken to prison because he preferred no to do anything and not to make any change at all. The conventional problem in the text is resolved when Bartleby is simply removed from the building; he doesn’t even put up a fight when the police take him to prison.
While this looks kind of like the end of the story, it’s really not. This “denouement” is a false one, and while things seem to have been cleared up, the central problem of Bartleby has simply been pushed aside, but not resolved. Melville concludes this odd tale with the mysterious death of its central character of Bartleby. Once in prison Bartleby refuses to eat, and subsequently starves to death. After Bartleby dies, alone and imprisoned, we finally learn one little tidbit about his past: apparently, he previously worked in the Dead Letter Office (a section of the Post Office that gets rid of undeliverable mail).
By just preferring not to live any longer, Bartleby announces his individuality in an ultimately fatal and dramatic ending. If he cannot live as he “prefers” to, he apparently doesn’t want to live at all. In the end, we don’t know what it was exactly that Bartleby “preferred,” and we are left to ponder the mystery of his death. The narrator wonders if this horrifyingly depressing job might have affected Bartleby’s sanity – and we, in turn, must wonder what makes all of us who we are.