Bartleby The Scrivener Essay

In “Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Herman Melville, Melville distinguishes his work with powerful imagery, diction, and a unique narrative structure. Using these literary structures allows the reader to immerse themselves in the story, viewing the narrator’s life through the eyes of the narrator. Throughout the novel, Melville’s imagery offers the reader a vivid picture of the setting and characters. When he introduces the narrator’s chambers, he writes, “my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade; which wall required no spy-glass to bring out its lurking beauties” (2). Here, Melville emphasizes the gloom of the building by personifying the windows, writing that the windows “commanded” a view, the view being a black looming wall. He also personifies the wall when he writes it has “lurking beauties.” This description suggests the wall is a monstrous creature, rather than simply a brick wall. When describing Bartleby’s appearance, Melville writes, “like a very ghost, agreeably to the laws of magical invocation, at the third summons, he

Rather than pairing dialogue with description, he often writes large paragraphs purely of the narrator’s thoughts. After the narrator fails to convince Bartleby to leave the building, Melville writes the narrator’s thoughts: “What shall I do? I now said to myself, buttoning up my coat to the last button. What shall I do? what ought I to do? what does conscience say I should do with this man, or rather ghost. Rid myself of him, I must; go, he shall. But how?” (23). Rather than simply writing that the narrator felt confused, Melville brings the reader into the mind of the narrator by writing the narrator’s thoughts in one long stream of consciousness. He repeats the narrator’s doubt—“what shall I do?”—to emphasize the narrator’s feelings of frustration and