Howard Fischer
Uppsala, Sweden

“Bartleby is the enigmatic personality par excellence.”¹

Herman Melville (1819–1891) was a prolific American novelist and poet. He was born in New York City. Both of his grandfathers were officers in the Colonial Army during the American Revolution, one a colonel, the other a general. When his family had financial troubles, he went to sea (1839–1844). He started as a sailor on whaling ships but deserted, and later was a seaman in the US Navy. His voyages and adventures in distant places provided material for his early successful stories.

His magnum opus Moby-Dick (1851) was not well-received. It was then that he started the novella Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street. He wrote eleven novels and fifteen novellas and short stories. At the time of his death, he was no longer well-known nor widely read.²

Bartleby the Scrivener³ is the story of a man who works as a copier (a scrivener) of documents at a law firm in New York City. He is “pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, …forlorn.” We know nothing of his past or of his personal life. He starts his job copying rapidly, without problems, “silently, palely, mechanically.” After some days in the law firm, he is asked to do something, and in a calm, composed fashion answers, “I would prefer not to.” A few days later he is asked again to proofread some copies, and again he says, “I would prefer not to.” The lawyer, his boss, asks why, but gets no response. This interaction is repeated again a day or two later. He also refuses to go to the nearby post office. Bartleby is the first one in the office in the morning and the last one there at night. The lawyer discovers that Bartleby sleeps in the office. “What miserable friendlessness and loneliness are here revealed…His poverty is great but his solitude—how horrible.”

The lawyer’s colleagues tell him that it is bad for his reputation to have a resisting employee. Bartleby will reveal nothing about his past, or about his family. The lawyer would like to contact a relative of Bartleby to get him some help for his “innate and incurable disorder.” Bartleby then “gives up copying.” He stares out the window for long periods and does not work. The lawyer fires him but Bartleby “prefer[s] not to leave the premises.” The lawyer then moves his firm to other offices, and Bartleby stays in the old office. The new occupants of the old office want the lawyer to remove Bartleby, but he cannot convince him to leave. The lawyer leaves town for a few days to escape this problem. When he returns, he finds that Bartleby has been jailed as a vagrant. He visits him in the jail, known locally as “The Tombs,” and arranges for Bartleby to be well fed. Bartleby, however, refuses all food, and dies.

Bartleby the Scrivener is on the BBC’s list of most influential novels⁴ and has been analyzed hundreds of times, from a range of perspectives. We will not revisit some authors’ discussions of free will versus predestination, of Bartleby as the exploited proletariat, or as a victim of posttraumatic stress disorder⁵ (with no reason given). Among other “far fetched analogies,”⁶ we find Bartleby compared to a leper—he is separated from others, has few possessions, and is sent into exile (that is, prison).⁷ Another interpretation sees him as Christ reincarnated.⁸ It has been suggested that Bartleby’s character, “quiet, withdrawn, morose,”⁹ resembles that of Melville. Melville is an artist, and like Bartleby, “cannot endure to write on demand.”¹⁰ Also, the poor reception Moby-Dick got did not improve Melville’s frequently depressed mood.

Could Bartleby’s personality owe something to Thoreau and his withdrawal from society? He and Thoreau were both aloof and had “odd dietary habits.” Melville may have read Thoreau’s Civil Disobedience before he wrote Bartleby. Walden, however was published after Bartleby.¹²

Looking at psychiatric diagnoses we may consider depression,¹³ defined as having a “persistently sad, anxious, or ‘empty’ mood, with a loss of interest in activities and hobbies.” It is accompanied by a change in appetite, loss of weight, and in moving and talking slowly. Wein¹⁴ thinks that Bartleby has too much energy and initiative for someone severely depressed, but Bartleby’s condition worsens throughout the story. His interest in his job declines, he refuses to copy, to talk, even to eat.¹⁵

Does Bartleby have a type of dementia?¹⁶ People with dementia have impaired memory, disrupted thought patterns, decreased motivation, and cognitive decline. Some individuals will show agitation, restlessness, aggression, and sexual disinhibition.¹⁷ As unusual as Bartleby’s behavior and statements are, he shows no evidence of cognitive impairment. Bartleby eats a few cookies (ginger nuts) each day. He has “extreme thinness,” a “lean visage,” and lethargy and sluggishness. In jail he refuses all food. He does not go on errands, and later on, will not move from the office. These behaviors have led to a suggestion of the problems of (simple) anorexia and agoraphobia.¹⁸ Both of these conditions may occur along with serious depression.

Morris Beja presented a case history of a person with schizophrenia.¹⁹ This man resembles Bartleby, and is withdrawn, introverted, and aloof. He is not able to express ordinary hostility or aggressive feelings. Schizophrenia is often accompanied by hallucinations and delusions, and sometimes by a catatonic, motionless state. A person with a schizoid personality disorder²⁰ does not have the hallucinations seen in full-blown schizophrenia. Beja does not mention the lack of hallucinations when he declares Bartleby schizophrenic. A 1970 film version of a modern Bartleby has him placed in a psychiatric hospital instead of a jail.

A novel, interesting idea that explains Bartleby’s weight loss, anorexia, pallor, flat affect, and staring spells (that may be petit mal epilepsy) is lead poisoning.²¹ In 1848 the Croton Aqueduct opened, bringing water from the Croton River in Westchester County to Manhattan. The pipes of the aqueduct were made of lead. The quantity of lead in the drinking water delivered to New York City was over 100 times the maximum amount permitted by the guidelines of today’s Environmental Protection Agency. Physicians in New York were encountering patients with difficult-to-diagnose signs and symptoms, which resolved when they stopped drinking tap water. To explain the magnitude of the risk involved, the article’s author compares the risk of an individual (let’s say Bartleby) having a brain tumor, which is 0.00082 percent against the 10% of people Melville encountered in New York showing effects of lead ingestion.

What are we left with? Beja²² says schizophrenia, Bogin²³ says lead, and Janeska²⁴ wisely tells us that we are looking at symptoms through the eyes of a narrator, and there is no way to “say which condition Bartleby really ‘has.’”

References

1. Sanford Pinsker. “‘Bartleby the Scrivener’: Language as wall.” College Literature, 2(1), 1975.
2. “Herman Melville.” Wikipedia.
3. Herman Melville. Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street, [1853], In Herman Melville. Billy Budd, Sailor and Other Stories. London: Penguin Books, 1970.
4. “Bartleby the Scrivener.” Wikipedia.
5. 92^nd St. Y. “Paul Giamatti in conversation with Andrew Delbianco.” YouTube, December 4, 2020.
6. Kingsley Widmer. “Melville’s radical resistance: The method and meaning of Bartleby.” Studies in the Novel, 1(21), 1969. Herman Melville.
7. Austin Pidgeon. “Christian ethics in the story of Bartleby the Scrivener,” Academia.edu.
8. Ann Doering. Melville’s ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’: A Review of Scholarship and Interpretation. (Thesis) Bowling Green State University, January 1966.
9. Susan Glouberman. Bartleby the Scrivener: A Critical Analysis. (Thesis) McGill University, February, 1980.
10. Doering, “Review of scholarship.”
11. Marvin Felheim. “Meaning and structure in ‘Bartleby.’” College English, 23(5), 1962.
12. Doering, “Review of scholarship.”
13. Martina Janeska. “Diagnosing Bartleby.” XA Proceedings, 1(1), 2018. https://hrcak.srce.hr/en/200181
14. Simon Wein. “Melville’s Bartleby: an absurd casualty.” Hektoen International, 14(4), 2022.
15. George Rishmawi. “Bartleby the Scrivener – A character study.” Bethlehem University Journal, 1(1), 1981.
16. Dasha Kiper. “What Melville’s ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’ tells us about memory loss.” LitHub, March 23, 2023. https://lithub.com/what-melvilles-bartleby-the-scrivener-tells-us-about-memory-loss/
17. “Dementia.” Wikipedia.
18. Janeska, “Diagnosing Bartleby.”
19. Morris Beja. “Bartleby and schizophrenia.” The Massachusetts Review, 19(3), 1978.
20. “Schizoid personality disorder.” Wikipedia.
21. Gerard Bogoin. Melville’s Unkown Pathology: The Humoral Theory of Disease and Low Grade Lead Poisoning in Bartleby the Scrivener. (Thesis) University of Southern Florida, November 2010. http://scholarcommons.usf.edu/etd/3575
22. Beja, “Bartleby and schizophrenia.”
23. Bogin, “Unknown pathology.”
24. Janeska, “Diagnosing Bartleby.”