“Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street” by Herman Melville, is a complex short story with multiple symbolic elements. From the walled in office located on Wall Street to the tall wall Bartleby sits by and stares at in jail, it is made apparent that walls are the most reoccurring symbol within the story. This metaphorical use of walls, creates the understanding of Bartleby’s separation from the people and the world in general, while also portraying the lack of freedom and all-consuming attitude associated with the work done on Wall Street.
The setting and evidently the subtitle of “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Tale of Wall Street” is crucial to analyze when examining this story of windows and walls. Wall Street and the culture that comes along with it, is essentially the heart of American culture. The issue with
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It is this sense of isolation created by Wall Street and office style work that Melville describes in this story. When describing the office, the narrator explains that in one direction it “looked upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious skylight shaft” (pg 102), and that in the other his “windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade” (pg 102). This description of the setting creates an image of the seclusion of the office, and solidifies that because of the walls and the windows that only face more walls, that the employees inside are isolated from the outside world. Furthermore, Bartleby’s working space, is yet again secluded, surrounded by even more walls, “I placed his desk close up to a small side-window in that part of the room, a window which originally had afforded a