1820-1865: Short Answer Quiz

Herman Melville, Bartleby, the Scrivener


  1. At the end of the story, the narrator informs us that Bartleby’s previous job was as a “subordinate clerk” in the Dead Letter Office, which sorts unclaimed letters and disposes of them. Compare this occupation to the post he takes with the narrator’s firm. Why would Bartleby have found being a scrivener for the Master of Chancery appealing (the Chancery court concerned itself with disputed estates and legacies). What insights can we draw about Bartleby’s character based on these two jobs?

  1. Before Melville’s narrator introduces Bartleby, he describes in great detail the eccentricities of his two other scriveners, Nippers and Turkey. Describe Bartleby’s behavior in the context of these other characters and their approaches to work. Does the narrator believe that copying attracts odd people? Does he find Bartleby easier to accept because of his experiences with these other two?

  1. Respond to the narrator’s ambivalent feelings toward Bartleby’s noncompliance as shown in the following passage: “Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance. If the individual so resisted be of a not inhumane temper, and the resisting one perfectly harmless in his passivity; then, in the better moods of the former, he will endeavor charitably to construe to his imagination what proves impossible to be solved by his judgment. Even so, for the most part, I regarded Bartleby and his ways….[But] the passiveness of Bartleby sometimes irritated me” (p. 2371 [full ed.] p. 1100 [shorter ed.]).

  1. After the narrator learns that Bartleby has been living in his office, he considers his employee’s case: “My first emotions had been those of pure melancholy and sincerest pity; but just in proportion as the forlornness of Bartleby grew and grew in my imagination, did that same melancholy merge into fear, that fear into revulsion” (pp. 2375-76 [full ed.] p. 1105 [shorter ed.]). What do we know about the narrator’s personal life and his own nonprofessional connections (beyond John Jacob Astor)? What is it about Bartleby’s situation that the narrator finds fearful and revolting?

  1. As a last resort to resolve the complaints by tenants of his old building, the narrator invites Bartleby to his lodgings: Given that he has spent so much effort trying to oust Bartleby from his own offices, why do you think he finally invites Bartleby to come with him to his home?



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