Interpretive Force in Melville's Bartelby, The Scrivener

Herman Meliville's Bartleby, The Scrivener is a fascinating little story that is concerned with what I term the paralysis of interpretation. If we look at the story as an analogy for the act of interpretation where Bartelby is a stubborn text and the narrator an overzealous critic, it seems that Melville is saying that there is no true method for interpreting a text because a text will always “prefer” to remain just as it is in its present state.

The relationship between Bartleby and the unnamed narrator couldn’t be simpler: Bartleby, a former employee for the narrator, has decided to abstain from any kind of work, yet refuses to leave the office, remaining in an almost permanent stasis throughout the greater part of the story. The narrator, on the other hand, is less persistent in his actions. Perhaps it is because the reader is granted such unfettered access to his thoughts (it is written in first person), but the narrator is as inconsistent in his interpretations of Bartelby’s actions as Bartelby is consistent in acting them out. The narrator best describes the crux of their relationship when he says near the end of the story, after many futile attempts to prompt Bartleby to alternate courses of action, that “[e]ither you must do something or something must be done to you” (29). In short, Bartleby must evince a preferred path for future actions (text speaking for itself) or the narrator must force Bartleby onto a course of action that runs counter to his “preference.” In both scenarios, the prospect of acquiescing to Bartebly’s preference is not entertained as a permanent and final option.

The irony of their relationship is that the narrator is no different from Bartleby in his indecisiveness. He refuses to enforce what seems to be the only clear course of action for ridding himself of the scrivener: calling the authorities to remove him. In fact, upon learning of the subsequent landlords decision to do just that, the narrator says that he “almost approved” for “it seemed the only plan” (31). For the later landlord, the decision was simple. Ask Bartleby to alter his actions, and if he does not, force the actions to alter Bartleby. The landlord responds to the paralysis of interpreting Bartleby by simply rejecting the prospect of interpretation altogether.