Bartleby, the Scrivener

Point of view is the perspective from which a story is narrated. Melville chose to narrate “Bartleby” in the first-person limited perspective, with a narrator who is a character within the story: Bartleby’s employer. Readers are limited to the narrator’s thoughts, feelings, and opinions, and the events he chooses to convey.

Readers know nothing about the workers in the office except what the narrator knows and chooses to tell us. He focuses on the eccentricities that affect how well or poorly they perform their jobs. Turkey, Nippers, and Bartleby are often admonished for their oddities and praised for the qualities that make them useful to the narrator. The employees are presented mainly from the perspective of their usefulness to the business goals of the lawyer.

Melville relies greatly on contrasting opposing concepts to convey meaning in “Bartleby.” The “dead brick wall” is contrasted with the nature that was once there. Wall Street’s bustling and energetic nature by day is contrasted with its ruined, ghost-town nature by night.

Melville relies on descriptive, vivid language to emphasize the difference between the two contrasted images.