While traveling en route to Tahiti after being picked up by an Australian whaler, Melville was imprisoned by the British Consul for refusing duty on the ship. In 1842 he jumped ship in the Marquesas Islands of the South Pacific during a whaling voyage and spent several months living among a tribe of cannibals in the Taipi Valley. In 1839 he signed on as a sailor and spent the next five years at sea. Melville briefly considered becoming a legal scrivener but was unable to secure a job. The experience of his father’s financial ruin and mental collapse left a deep impression on the young Melville, who later explored issues of sanity and the pressures of capitalism in such stories as “Bartleby the Scrivener.”Īfter his father’s death, Melville left school and worked odd jobs. In 1832, when Herman was twelve, his father died, leaving the Melville family heavily burdened by debt. Allan Melville tried to re-establish his business in Albany, New York, but his financial burdens drove him to a mental and physical breakdown. Although their family name was well respected, the Melvilles went bankrupt in 1830. He was the son of Allan Melville, a successful merchant, and Maria Gansevoort Melville, who came from an old New York family of distinction and wealth. Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1,1819. It is highly admired for its remarkable ability to accommodate multiple interpretations. The story’s enduring appeal largely stems from its well-crafted ambiguity. However one interprets its ultimate meaning, the story provides an exploration into such universal issues of the human experience as alienation, passivity, nonconformity, and psychological imprisonment. Others have viewed it as a philosophical meditation on the human condition, or as a religious parable on religion itself. Most have viewed it as a work of social criticism dealing with the psychological effects of capitalism as it existed in the 1850s. The story has been interpreted by critics in numerous ways. One day, Bartleby the scrivener announces that he “would prefer not to” follow his employer’s orders or even to be “a little reasonable.” The resulting tragedy follows from Bartleby’s inability or unwillingness to articulate the reasons for his rebellion and from his employer’s inability to comprehend Bartleby’s reasons for resisting and ultimate unwillingness to accommodate him. The plot involves one man’s difficulty in coping with his employee’s peculiar form of passive resistance. “Bartleby the Scrivener” was written by Herman Melville in 1853 and was first published in Putnam’s Magazine in the November/December issue of that year.

Bartleby the Scrivener, A Tale of Wall Street

Bartleby the scrivener theme