Re-Diagnosing "Bartleby the Scrivener"

English > Analysis
Literature > American

Revised opinion about the which characters are significant in Herman Melville's story "Bartleby the Scrivener" and the true message of the story.

22,576 words () | 8 sources | MLA | 2005 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper offers a second diagnosis of Herman Melville's story "Bartleby the Scrivener" and suggests that, in basic literary terms, it is the lawyer not Bartleby that is the dynamic character in the tale. Bartleby, the existential symbol, may collapse but only the lawyer can change.

From the Paper:

"Second, although standard definitions nominate the lawyer as the round, major, and dynamic character of Melville's tale of a law office, Bartley is equally round, as least with the limits of his illness, and he also changes in his deterioration. Technically, if he is not the major character, he is the essential character, dipped in that "power of blackness," the phrase Melville used in a review of "Mosses from an Old Manse" to praise Hawthorne."

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APA Citation:

Re-Diagnosing "Bartleby the Scrivener" (2012, January 15). Retrieved February 14, 2012, from http://www.academon.com/Analytical-Essay-Re-Diagnosing-Bartleby-the-Scrivener/61245

MLA Citation:

"Re-Diagnosing "Bartleby the Scrivener"" 15 January 2012. Web. 14 Feb. 2012. <http://www.academon.com/Analytical-Essay-Re-Diagnosing-Bartleby-the-Scrivener/61245>