Everyone else worked in a separate location to the narrator, so Widmer believes that the narrator places Bartleby in his office so that he can control him and make him do things the seasoned employees wouldn’t. So when Bartleby appears at the office and interviews for the job, the narrator thinks that Bartleby will tone the office down some because he was so different than the others. In the story, the other scriveners are very unreserved. He feels that the narrator “variously attempts to exorcise his wan demon of perverse will, his own walled-in humanity.” I believe that it affects the story to the point of making the narrator seem less genuine during the times where he tries to help Bartleby.
In fact, it seems as though he paints the narrator to be more of an antagonist. After reading the short story the question we must all ask ourselves is does this story have a ‘hero’? Who is it? How does this affect the story?Īlthough Bartleby and the narrator are seen as the main characters, Widmer does not identify a “hero” in the story between those two. For the contemporary reader, Bartleby’s existence could have a double meaning: an alter ego for the alienated person who is living under circumstances completely different from what nature intended it to be and a choice of passive response to societies compulsiveness to adjust and submit to a strict simple but deceptive rules.
Besides considering the personality and actions of the narrator, others have concentrated their attention on the relationship between the two and the significance of their interaction or lack thereof. Bartleby’s unique character was so mysterious that it forced readers to look into the motives of the other major character, the narrator. Herman Melville’s short story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” has provided readers and critics with enough material to speculate upon Bartleby’s condition and the message the writer intends to send through the peculiar character.
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