Meaning and Structure in "Bartleby" Author(s): Marvin Felheim Source: College English, Vol. 23, No. 5 (Feb.

, 1962), pp. 369-370+375-376 Published by: National Council of Teachers of English Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/373809 Accessed: 11/11/2010 06:19
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MEANINGAND STRUCTUREIN "BARTLEBY"

MARVINFELHEIM Melville may have based this story have also been put forward. Leyda has suggested that "The figure of Bartleby himself, no matter how wider his true significance, may have been drawn from the most intimate friendship of his early maturity-with Eli James Murdoch Fly, whom he could have first met either at the Albany Academy or during Fly's five-year apprenticeship in the law office of Peter Gansevoort, Melville's uncle. In the fall of 1840 they together went to New York looking for work: . .. Fly remained in New York to take 'a situation with a Mr Edwards, where he has incessant writing from morning to Eves.' Fly reappears, in a letter from Melville to Evert Duyckinck: 'He has long been a confirmed invalid, & in some small things I act a little as his agent.' "5 A third candidate has been resurrected by Leon Howard in his biography of Melville. "The story," writes Howard, "was supposedly based upon a certain amount of fact, and the fact may have been either some anecdote concerning a lawyer's clerk or the unfortunate condition of Melville's friend Adler, who had developed such a severe case of agoraphobia that he was to be confined in the Bloomingdale Asylum."6 A more persistent and provocative identification of Bartleby, however, has been with Melville himself. As early as 1929, Lewis Mumford asserted this position: "Bartleby," he maintained, "affords us a glimpse of Melville's own drift of mind in this in Putnam's Magazine miserable year [1853]: the point of the 'Originally published for November and December, 1853, under the story plainly indicates Melville's present title, "Bartleby,the Scrivener. A Story of Wall dilemma."' Other critics have almost unanStreet"; reprinted in The Piazza Tales, 1856. imously shared this point of view. Typical is 2Reviews quoted by Jay Leyda in The Mel- this comment some twenty-five years later: ville Log (1951), II, pp. 515-6. "There are excellent reasons for reading SEgbert S. Oliver, "A Second Look at 'Bartle'Bartleby' as a parable having to do with by,"' College English, 6 (May 1945), p. 432. "Richard H. Fogle, Melville's Shorter Tales Melville's own fate as a writer."8 This inter(1960), p. 20. 5The Complete Stories of Herman Melville, edited by Jay Leyda (1945), p. 455. Mr. Felheim has published articles and a 6Leon Howard, Herman Melville, A Biogbook, The Theater of Augustin Daly, on the raphy (1951), p. 208. drama; he is the editor of a Sourcebook on 'Lewis Mumford, Herman Melville (1929), p. Comedy, which will appear in 1962. His chief 238. critical interests center in the relationship be8Leo Marx, "Melville'sParable of the Walls," tween form and content. Sewanee Review, XLI (Autumn 1953), p. 603. "Bartleby," Melville's first story,' written in the year after Pierre, has become more and more Melville's representative work: partly because of the difficulty of anthologizing the longer works (coupled, perhaps, with a reluctance to cope with their complexities in a survey course); and partly because "Bartleby," which anticipates the works of Kafka and others, seems so modem (hence, teachable?). One notable consequence of this constant republication has been a parallel growth of critical interpretations of "Bartleby." These commentaries fall into three general categories. First, there are those traditional kinds of treatment in which literary historians search for actual identities. This practice was clearly enunciated in the earliest reviews. In both the Berkshire County Eagle and The Criterion, reviewers of The Piazza Tales indicated that "Bartleby" is "a portrait from life" which was "based upon living characters."2 These suggestions are annoyingly vague, however, inasmuch as they make no specific identifications. In more recent times, Bartleby's condition has been viewed as having originated in "an external contemporary source, namely, Thoreau's withdrawal from society."3 This idea has taken hold of many critical imaginations. So we find even the most recent critic of "Bartleby" referring to the central character as "a melancholy Thoreau."4 Other more immediate personalities upon whose lives

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pretation has in turn been expanded to include the notion that Bartleby represents not just Melville but the nineteenth-century American artistin conflict with his environment. Perhaps the most elaborate autobiographical reading of the story is that by Willard Thorp, who viewed Melville's"new kind of writing" (for magazines like Harper's and Putnam's) as resembling that of his lawyer, "dull business but (possibly) profitable."Melville, continues Thorp, was "of three minds about it. Like Turkey he can keep at it until noon. Like Nippers he can be steady enough until his ambitiongets the upper hand. In the characterof Bartleby Melville prefigures what this new life may ultimately come to. Will its trivialities,the conventional nature of his task, impel him to follow the lonely scrivener's decision to 'copy' no more?"' A third approach to the story, occasionally implicit in the other two, has been the aesthetic, which can be describedas the attempt to understandthe piece as a work of art. Mumford prefaced his comments with the simple assertionthat "Bartleby"is "a good story in itself." F. O. Matthiessen, in his distinguished study, American Renaissance,referred to the story as "a tragedy of utter negation, of the enduring hopelessness of a young man who is absolutelyalone, 'a bit of wreck in the mid-Atlantic,' which is New York."'o Later critics have strained themselves a bit more in their efforts to analyze the work. The most frequent label applied in recent years has been "parable," and the key words to describe Melville's method, "irony" and "symbolism."A few examplesfrom the many will serve. Richard Chase refers to "a profounder level of symbolic meaning in Bartleby." Now, he maintains,"we have indeed once more come upon Melville's central theme: the relation between the father and the son [symbolically, the lawyer and Bartleby] and their failure or success in achieving the atonement, in redeeming each other.""'Newton Arvin goes one level better: "There is a

level on which 'Bartleby' can be described as a wonderfully intuitive study in what would today be called schizophrenia . . . What Bartleby essentially dramatizesis not the pathos of dementia praecox but the bitter metaphysical pathos of the human situationitself; the cosmic irony of the truth that men are at once immitigably interdependent and immitigably forlorn."12 Finally, the analysisof Richard Fogle, previously referred to, makes the claim that "Bartleby"is "a story of absolutism, predestination, and free will, in which predestinationundoubtedly predominates." All three of these approaches,particularly the interpretative,substantially reinforce the impression that "Bartleby"is indeed a rich and rewardingwork.13 But it is curious how little these critics have been concerned to attempt any analysis of the story in terms of form. Only Marx has mentioned structure. He indicates (p. 608) that the narrative "takes place in three consecutive movements: Bartleby's gradually stiffening resistence to the Wall Street routine, then a series of attemptsby the lawyer to enforce the scrivener'sconformity and, finally, society's punishmentof the recalcitrantwriter." I would like to offer here a more extensive investigation of the organizationof the tale. First of all, we must keep in mind that this is a first-personnarrativeand, although the story is about Bartleby, we know him and come to understand his situation through the eyes and words of the lawyer who employs him. The story appropriately begins with "I . . . a rather elderly man"; it concludes with a comment, set off by itself, a kind of universal sigh, uttered by no one, addressednot even to "the reader": Ah, Bardeby!Ah, humanity! The story, I submit, is not Bartleby's,but, on the first level, the lawyer's; secondly, it is the reader's, for as the lawyer learns
"Newton Arvin, Herman Melville, A Critical
Biography (1950), p. 243.

"By no means do these few references exhaust the number of published works which have 'Willard Thorp, "Melville,"Literary History interpreted or explained "Bartleby."One must of the United States (rev. ed., New York, consult the Melville section (pp. 207-270) of Eight American Authors, edited by Floyd Stov1955), p. 463. "F. O. Matthiessen, American Renaissance all (1956), the entries under Melville in Contemporary Literary Scholarship, edited by (1941), p. 146. "Richard Chase, Herman Melville, A Critical Lewis Leary (1958), as well as continuing bibStudy (1949), pp. 147-8. liographies in PMLA and other journals.

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so must the reader. The fact that both the him a valuable acquisition." He was, in lawyer and the reader do learn is, then, truth, no more difficult than Turkey or communicatedby means of this final chorus, Nippers. But now Bartleby poses a second probappropriately a paragraph to itself, unadorned except for the exclamation marks lem: the lawyer discovers that his scrivener which emphasize the awful awareness con- has been living at the office. (Here, again, tained in the expressionitself. we must note that Bartleby's eccentricity is Marx is correct, I believe, in his notion a matter of degree: the others eat gingerthat the story develops in three movements. nut cakes whereas Bartleby consumes only But I should like to suggest a differenttriad. these spicy tid-bits and some cheese; the The opening section of the story does not others spend their days in the office, but center about Bartleby, except indirectly. It here Bartleby "makes his home" never even introduces, first of all, the lawyer, who going out for a walk.) "What miserable makes it clear that his procedure through- friendliness and loneliness are here revealed! out will be absolutely in character,for even His poverty is great; but his solitude, how "the late John Jacob Astor ... had no horrible!" Bartleby's state forces a new hesitation in pronouncing my first grand response from the lawyer: pity. It is sigpoint to be prudence; my next, method." nificant that the lawyer does not simply The story, then, will be unfolded cautiously feel sorry for his clerk; he can as well pity and methodically. Almost immediately we himself: "A fraternal melancholy! For both meet "first,Turkey; second, Nippers; third, I and Bartleby were sons of Adam." The Ginger Nut." And we notice at once that upshot of his discovery and the violence of the lawyer is nameless;the employees have his reactions prevent him from going to nicknames;for Bartlebyalone is a true name church. (There is no answer in formal relireserved. Only after the eccentricities of gion?) the lawyer and the employees have been The third problem which Bartleby poses fully revealed is Bartleby introduced: now emerges: he gives up copying. He has In aswerto my advertisement,motionless become "a millstone." And the lawyer's a young man one morning stood upon my response? The perfect Christian reaction: officethreshold, door being open, for it charity. The lawyer, after a variety of exthe was summer.I can see that figure now- cuses and plans, simply recalls "the divine pallidlyneat, pitiablyrespectable, incurably injunction: 'A new commandment give I forlorn! It was Bartleby. unto you, that ye love one another.' " Thus The middle third of the story deals with the middle section of the tale is brought to subsequent happeningsin the law office, in a close. The lawyer concludes with Job-like particular with the lawyer-scrivener rela- resignation that "these troubles ... had been tionship. This longest section of the nar- all predestined from eternity, and Bartleby rative can in turn be divided into three was billeted upon me for some mysterious segments. It begins "on the third day" of purpose of an allwise Providence, which it Bartleby's employment. Called upon "to was not for a mere mortal like me to examine a small paper," Bartleby, "in a fathom." In 1853, in the publication of "Bartleby" singularlymild, firm voice, replied, 'I would prefer not to.'" Thus Bartleby poses the in two parts in Putnam's Magazine, the first problem. (We must note that he is not break between the two installments ocbeing whimsical; his behavior is eccentric curred after Bartleby's announcement that but, as is the case with the other characters, he had given up copying and after the emit is absolute;he acts on the basis of "some ployer's decision to try to cope with this paramount consideration.") Bartleby's ac- situation. The actual stopping place was the tions provoke the lawyer's first response: moment when the lawyer, having left Barselfish acceptance."Here I can cheaply pur- tleby a generous amount of money, having chase a delicious self-approval,"he writes; requested him to leave the key under the after all, Bartleby's"steadiness,his freedom mat, departs his office, "charmed" with the from all dissipation, his incessant industry "beauty" of his handling of the matter. This . .. his great stillness, his unalterablnessof is a dramatic high point in the narrative, of demeanor under all circumstances, made a kind to excite readers' curiosity: will Bar-

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volved; it has taken over the lawyer's role. But society has no method, no way of coping with the issues Bartleby raises. It can resort only to its one effective institution, the jail, ironically named the Tombs. There, Bartleby dies, to join others like himself, "kings and counselors." At last, he can absolutely be identified with a society. It is significant that Melville added a kind of postscript to this story: the lawyer's divulgence of "one little item of rumor." The information, "that Bartleby had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office at Washington, from which he had been suddenly removed by a change in the administration," merely confirms our previous point; it adds a specific political dimension to the social one, but it in no way diminishes the central point, that society must be responsible. The "charity" or "pardon," the "hope" or "good tidings" which those dead letters contained are all useless, too late. Indeed, only a choral comment could end this story. Any personal remark would be inadequate and artistically out of key.

tieby leave the premises? But it is not the philosophic and structural climax of the story, which takes place a bit later, after the lawyer's acceptance of the situation. But now we must move to the concluding section of the story: society enters, in the persons of the lawyer's "professional friends" and other visitors. They are the first; they force the lawyer to desert his chambers, his principles, and Bartleby. New "tenants" now add their complaints. Finally, the landlord sends for the police, who remove Bartleby to the Tombs. Here there are more social beings: "murderers and thieves," the "grub-man," several "turnkeys." The final section of the narrative truly enlarges the implications. As long as relationships were on a personal, one-toone basis (as was true also of the employer's attitude toward Turkey and Nippers) the lawyer could, and did, behave as a Christian. But once the situation was allowed to go further, was invaded by others, new considerations arose. In this third section, the role of the lawyer subtly changes: he is no longer an involved character; he has become simply the narrator. Society has become in-

JAMES'S "THE REAL THING": THREE LEVELS OF MEANING EARLE LABOR

Despite its popularity in the classroom (it is perhaps the most anthologized of all Henry James's stories), "The Real Thing" continues to be read as a little masterpiece which, according to Clifton Fadiman, "expresses amusingly (and no more than that) the old truth that art is a transformation of reality, not a mere reflection of the thing itself."' Without commenting upon Mr. Fadiman's curious sense of humor, I should like to demonstrate that James's theme-an "exquisite" question, as he put it-includes considerably "more than that." It should be evident that, were the central meaning of "The Real Thing" no more than an esthetic cliche, the question that struck

James's sensibility could hardly have been an exquisite one. An intelligence so fine
"'A Note on The Real Thing," The Short Stories of Henry James (New York, 1945), p. 217. Several critics have gone beyond Fadiman's superficial reading of this story; especially noteworthy are the following: William F. Marquardt, "A Practical Approach to The Real Thing by Henry James," English "A" Analyst (Northwestern University), No. 14 (June 13, 1949); Quentin Anderson, ed., Henry James: Selected Short Stories (New York, 1957), pp. vii-ix; and Walter F. Wright, "The Real Thing," Research Studies of the State College of Washington, XXV (March, 1957), 85-90. Also, see Edward Stone, ed., Henry James: Seven Stories and Studies (New York,

An assistantprofessor of English at Centenary 1961), pp. 131-141, 309; and Maurice Beebe and College of Louisiana, Mr. Labor is the author William T. Stafford, "Criticism of Henry of articles on Faulkner, Crane, Hemingway, and James: A Selected Checklist with an Index to Henry Green, and has written a forthcoming Studies of Separate Works," Modern Fiction critical study of Jack London. Studies, III (Spring, 1957), 91.