The ‘Bartleby the
Scrivener’ story adopts confusion of copy and original and loss of origin, plenitude and
emptiness, charity and its limit and responsibility and work themes to develop the plot and the
conflicts of the narrative.
It is the only background piece of information available that depicts narrator’s
eerie scrivener (Weinstock 24).
The story traffics explicitly in phantomlike dead letters (Weinstock 24).
Patrice Evans
Ms. Courtney Smith
ENG-112-ADWB1
2 May 2021
The Theme of Bartleby the Scrivener
‘Bartleby the Scrivener’ is a story about haunting and a narrative that haunts. It is about
getting rid of the main character, while Bartleby has an impeccable ability to remain constantly
in the setting. It is a narrative of an attorney, staff members, Bartleby, and the law files’ copyist.
It is a story that purports
that there are some secrets that can never be unraveled. The tale entails an urge for unraveling
the meaning which is difficult to achieve. The author utilizes a myriad of themes in the narrative.
The themes of the tale can be comprehended by understanding Bartley and the lawyer’s
words. Every statement, dialogue, action, and interpretation are received by a reader through the
lawyer’s report.
The lawyer affixes that the epilogue cannot be substantiated. The
epilogue’s supplemental status and the dead letters’ equation with the dead men compels the
reader to reevaluate the whole narrate, institutes a perspective of Bartley as a form of ‘dead
letter’ and the tale as a rumor and unsubstantiated report (Hans 285).
CONFUSION OF COPY AND ORIGINAL AND LOSS OF ORIGIN
‘full and satisfactory biography’.
The confusion of copy and original witnessed at the beginning of the narration persists in the
entire story. It generates a myriad of questions on the originals’ sanctity.
While of other law-copyists, I might write the
complete life, of the Bartleby nothing of the sort can be done. I believe that no materials exist,
for a full and satisfactory biography of this man (Weinstock 27).’
Evans 2
The two themes are prevalent in the narrative. They have been essential in the
organization of the whole story. In the first paragraph, the narrator, the unspecific lawyer, starts
by describing himself as an elderly man who has encountered several scriveners (Weinstock 24).
The narrator describes to the reader what he is not going to recount. He reveals that he would not
provide all the details despite having the potential to narrate. The narrator forfeits to present the
He notes that ‘
The narrator fails to present the
entire biographical account of Bartleby because there is nothing that has been document of the
law-copyist. Instead, he was to report what he perceived, and the rumors propagated about his
subject.
The themes are apparent as the lawyer is unwilling to narrate Bartleby’s story. Despite
being a lawyer with original legal documents which he hired scriveners to duplicate, the narrator
is only willing to narrate what he heard and saw about Bartley in writing. The lawyers’
retrospective narration of the events witnessed will not be original but what had already
transpired. He is only willing to copy the details heard and seen about his copyist. Despite
Bartley being a member of the original copyist, he does not perform his duties (Weinstock 28).
Additionally, prior to Bartleby’s employment’ as a law-copyist, the theme of confusion of
copy and original is evident in the text. The reader is informed of Nippers’ role, another
narrator’s scrivener. The narrator shows that Nippers had ambition in the exercise of his post
which was described as ‘an unwarrantable usurpation of strictly professional affairs, such as the
The lawyer is comfortable with his employees despite their
unauthentic work.
Evans 3
original drawing up of legal documents (Weinstock 30).’ Nippers is not a professional lawyer
and consequently the law do not empower his production of legal documents. His work and the
copies he produces are not authentic.
PLENITUDE AND EMPTINESS
Plenitude is a condition characterized with abundance while emptiness is a state of
possessing or containing nothing. Thematic context of the emptiness topic is the way in which
people deliberate on creating themselves. It is the way people are themselves and can be depicted
by whatever that haunts them at the phases they are in their lives. ‘Bartleby the Scrivener’
represents the main character as a void human being (Hans). Additionally, the theme of
emptiness or solitude is evident where the narrator explains his decisive moment with Bartley on
morning, I happened to go Trinity Church, to hear a celebrity speaker, and finding myself rather
early on the ground, I thought I would walk around to my chamber for a while. Luckily, I had my
key with me; but on applying it on the lock, I found it resisted by something inserted from the