Moby Dick

Reading “Bartleby the Scrivener,” what I wondered most about was Bartleby’s motivation. Why did he start work as a scrivener? Why did he prefer not to do things? Why did he stop working and stop eating? It seems to me that Bartleby preferred to be independent, and did things because he wanted to. He even went so far as to not do things specifically because he had been told, or because he had to depend on another person.

At the beginning, Bartleby answered the lawyer’s advertisement all on his own. Soon after his employment, the lawyer asks him to examine a paper. He prefers not to. He goes back to his own writing (without being asked). Later, he is invited to examine copies with his coworkers, and prefers not to. It seems at this point that Bartleby does not answer to commands, but does respond to politely put questions. The lawyer sometimes would summon Bartleby “in a short, rapid tone,” and would receive no response. Bartleby is a gentlemen. The narrator makes that clear when he describes him that fateful Sunday morning. The narrator also makes it clear that the reason he allows Bartleby to refuse to do things is because of the civil and polite manner in which he refuses. Bartleby is the reverse. He does not allow the narrator his way because he is neither calm nor civil.

That’s how it seems. Until a bit later when our narrator questions Bartleby about his life in quite a calm and polite manner, to no avail.

Bartleby decided himself to stop writing. He did not go get exercise in fresh air as the narrator suggested, possibly because it was suggested at all. Upon receiving more urges from his boss to write, Bartleby gives up writing all together. When asked to leave, he does not.

Bartleby never takes the lawyer’s money, or invitations to his home.

At the end of our story, the very nice lawyer narrator arranges for Bartleby to receive delicious food at the prison, as opposed to nasty, bland prison food. Bartleby dies of starvation. He does not accept the food, perhaps because it would make him dependent – dependent on the lawyer to provide him with a nice life, and dependent on Mr. Cutlets for the food itself.

Bartleby was a stubborn character, but there is no denying that he was completely independent.

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