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Bartleby Walls

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When we look around the room, we see walls. The walls give a representation about the Inside Herman Melville’s short story, “Bartleby the Significance of the Wall,” describes the short life of Bartleby as he tries to find his meaning to live. When Bartleby could not discover his life, he then turns to the walls, waiting for an answer to come to him. The wall where Bartleby sits in front of every day represents his future as a blank wall, nothing for him to look forward to. Bartleby becomes an enigmatic person when he takes his first steps into the narrator’s office. No one knows about his background or where Bartleby came from. When the narrator first meets the man, he describes Bartleby as “an irreparable loss to literature...nothing is ascertainable, …show more content…

To Bartleby, the walls represent his upcoming death. Bartleby feels lost; he does not know what will happen in the future. Every time Bartleby looks at the wall, he sees the limits of his puzzle life, leading to his breakdown. Knowing that he will disappear soon, Bartleby decides to not come out of his office, “a certain unconscious air...of pallid haughtiness” (14). The walls symbolize Bartleby’s isolation from the office, the world, and the society. He does not enjoy the life he lives in currently. Bartleby’s existence right now does not match with his preferences; because he cannot live a life as he “prefers to,” in his mind there is no reason for him to be …show more content…

To his dismay, Bartleby would not answer any questions about himself. He instead states out, “I would prefer not to” (15). With no more ideas, the narrator moves out of the office, try to get away from Bartleby. The narrator’s plan was to “move elsewhere, and give him fair notice...then [proceeding] against him as a common trespasser” (23). The narrator thinks that Bartleby should be in jail, where he can stare at the walls as long as he wants. Inside the prison, Bartleby continues to gape into the walls, starving until his death, “strangely huddled at the base of the wall...his head touching the cold stones…[seems] profoundly sleeping”

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