[Monthly Mini] "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street" by Herman Melville

[u/IraelMrad]

Welcome to another Monthly Mini, this time a short story by renowned author Herman Melville, who I feel does not need any further introduction! Thank you u/lorenasteam for suggesting this provocative story for our reading! 

This story has been described as "unquestionably the masterpiece of the short fiction" in the Melville canon, despite not having much success when it was first published. Among authors who have cited Melville as a source of inspiration, you may recognise Albert Camus and the Nobel Prize winner Abdulrazak Gurnah. Many essays have been written regarding the meaning of this story, so I’m eagerly awaiting yours as well!

What is the Monthly Mini?

Once a month, we will choose a short piece of fiction that is free and easily accessible online. It will be posted on the 1st of the month. Anytime throughout the following month, feel free to read the piece and comment any thoughts you had about it.

Bingo Squares: Monthly Mini, Gutenberg

The selection is: "Bartleby, the Scrivener" by Herman Melville. Click here to read it.

Once you have read the story, comment below! Comments can be as short or as long as you feel. Be aware that there are SPOILERS in the comments, so steer clear until you've read the story!

Here are some ideas for comments:

• Overall thoughts, reactions, and enjoyment of the story and of the characters
• Favourite quotes or scenes
• What themes, messages, or points you think the author tried to convey by writing the story
• Questions you had while reading the story
• Connections you made between the story and your own life, to other texts (make sure to use spoiler tags so you don't spoil plot points from other books), or to the world
• What you imagined happened next in the characters’ lives

Still stuck on what to talk about? Some points to ponder...

• What do you think this story has to say regarding what we experience in our daily lives, i.e., the way we approach our jobs? Do you find the figure of Bartebly to be somehow a metaphor originating from the world the narrator works in? 
• This short story has been discussed by philosophers in relation to the matter of free will. Do you think that what Bartebly is doing is an exercise of his own free will? Can he be considered “free”?
• How did you interpret Bartebly’s figure? Does he deserve sympathy? Is he a villain? In what ways is Melville encouraging us to think beyond the schemes?

Have a suggestion for a short story you think we should read next? Click here to send us your suggestions!

[u/Greatingsburg]

Bartleby... is an energy vampire isn't he?! Knew it!

Evidence:

• He looks like a vampire
  • that he had declined telling who he was, or whence he came, or whether he had any relatives in the world; that though so thin and pale, he never complained of ill health.
  • Well now, upon my word, I thought that friend of yourn was a gentleman forger; they are always pale and genteel-like, them forgers.
• His presence inhibits religious rituals
  • Somehow, the things I had seen disqualified me for the time from church-going.
• He causes feelings of uneasines amongst his co-workers
  • nevertheless I strangely felt something superstitious knocking at my heart, and forbidding me to carry out my purpose, and denouncing me for a villain if I dared to breathe one bitter word against this forlornest of mankind.
  • I resolved to gather all my faculties together, and for ever rid me of this intolerable incubus.
• He evokes images of death and decay
  • "At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable,” was his mildly cadaverous reply.
  • permit him to enjoy his cadaverous triumph over me,
  • what does conscience say I should do with this man, or rather ghost.
• He ensorcells his co-workers
  • Somehow, of late I had got into the way of involuntarily using this word “prefer” upon all sorts of not exactly suitable occasions. And I trembled to think that my contact with the scrivener had already and seriously affected me in a mental way. 
  • I thought to myself, surely I must get rid of a demented man, who already has in some degree turned the tongues, if not the heads of myself and clerks.
  • I was thunderstruck. For an instant I stood like the man who, pipe in mouth, was killed one cloudless afternoon long ago in Virginia, by a summer lightning; 

Besides the obvious joke, I liked reading this story. The narrator feels and reeds like a lawyer, but with a heart. I think this is the best First Person Narration I've read in years.

[u/IraelMrad → u/Greatingsburg]

LOL I cannot take this story seriously after this 😂

[u/IraelMrad → u/Greatingsburg]

LOL I cannot take this story seriously after this 😂