Studieguide till Bartleby

Bartleby

Bartleby is a quiet copyist whose steady work accompanies a refusal to perform other duties. As the office becomes his home, his resistance becomes permanent, and he eventually rejects work, shelter, and food before dying in prison.

The narrator

The narrator is Bartleby's employer, caught between sympathy for his worker and anger at his refusals. He moves his office away, yet later offers work and shelter, showing that departure does not settle his sense of responsibility.

Turkey

Turkey is an older English copyist whose excellent morning work gives way to noisy, aggressive afternoons. He recommends ale for Bartleby and adopts his verbal habit, suggesting that Bartleby's presence affects even the speech of other workers.

Nippers

Nippers is an ambitious young copyist whose morning irritability and repeated desk adjustments suggest restlessness at work. His employer later leaves him in charge while avoiding further confrontations about Bartleby, giving him a practical role during the withdrawal.

Ginger Nut

Ginger Nut is the twelve-year-old office boy who cleans, runs errands, and buys snacks for the copyists.

Mr. B—

Mr. B— occupies the narrator's former office and expels Bartleby from it. His demand for the narrator's intervention shows how moving away fails to remove the narrator from the problem.

The landlord

The landlord demands Bartleby's removal rather than allowing his presence to continue. By calling the police to have him imprisoned as a vagrant, he turns the problem of accommodation into one of confinement.

Passive resistance

Bartleby's refusal to check documents or run errands shows resistance through withholding cooperation rather than taking command. As his refusals become permanent and the office becomes his home, this resistance suggests a withdrawal that ordinary workplace expectations cannot resolve.

Limits of compassion

The narrator's movement between sympathy and anger shows that compassion does not erase resentment. His decision to move the office away suggests a limit to the care he can sustain when Bartleby's continued presence becomes something he cannot comfortably accept.

Workplace authority

The employer's acceptance of Bartleby's refusals shows authority becoming uncertain when a worker does not cooperate. Visitors' unsuccessful dealings with Bartleby add pressure, suggesting that the narrator's response concerns not only control inside the office but also his professional reputation.

Failed help

The offers of work and shelter show help reaching a limit when Bartleby rejects change. His refusal of dinner and death in prison suggest that providing opportunities or necessities does not, by itself, create a connection that he can accept.

Walls

The recurring walls suggest separation around Bartleby's working life and withdrawal. Their return in the prison section connects that separation with confinement, making physical barriers work as an image of failed connection.

The screen

The screen works as an image of separation within a shared workplace. Its recurrence as the office becomes Bartleby's home suggests how working space and private withdrawal overlap.

Dinner

Dinner works as a concrete form of help that Bartleby does not accept. His refusal connects an ordinary necessity with the larger failure to sustain him.

Bartleby, Part 1. Bartleby speaks while refusing the assistance expected of him. His language of preference suggests quiet resistance that leaves the demand unanswered without becoming an openly aggressive challenge.

The narrator, Part 2. The narrator describes the limits of his access to Bartleby's suffering during his struggle between pity and resentment. The line suggests that recognizing distress does not necessarily make meaningful help possible.

The narrator, Part 3. The narrator's exclamation links Bartleby with humanity in the part that ends with his death. It suggests that this failed connection raises a wider question about human responsibility.