Throughout the story of Bartleby the Scrivener the reader is witness to this seemingly disjunct unity. Bartleby and the narrator might be considered men from two different worlds belonging to the same. The way in which the narrator so readily adapts to the world of Wall Street helps the reader to perceive the narrator as the foil to Bartleby. In reference to the narrator, setting is also important.

This allows the reader a better understanding of Bartleby as an outsider. The setting of Wall Street full of its hustle and bustle creates a sharp disparity with the nature of Bartleby’s character. Bartleby is an enigma to the narrator and in the same regard the narrator may be seen as an enigma to Bartleby. Whilst Bartleby is quite content to do nothing, the narrator is quite discontent doing anything other than work. The use of this motif serves to reinforce the antithetical nature of the relationship between Bartleby and the narrator. The narrator is driven to near madness by Bartleby’s quaint reply to his questioning. The author uses the motif of Bartleby’s solemn refusal, “I would prefer not to,” to emphasize Bartleby’s unwillingness to adapt. Melville is in essence showing that in a matter of fact he is correct in his skepticism as he has created a character that baffles the reader. The narrator is fruitless in his endeavors to break through to Bartleby because of Melville’s own aforementioned skepticism. Bartleby, like a wall, is immovable in the literal sense at points, and indeed in the mental sense throughout the story.īartleby’s wants and need are not privy to the narrator which may help to explain the narrator’s obsession with Bartleby. They both represent the “inscrutable” as Elliot describes it. ” The wall that is Moby Dick and the wall that is Bartleby are very much the same thing.

Melville scrivener