Suppression and Subversion through Walls in Bartleby the Scrivener Es

Suppression and Subversion through Walls in Bartleby the Scrivener In Bartleby the Scrivener an elderly attorney recounts the tenure of a scrivener, Bartleby, from his office. The promotion of this employer/employee relationship depicts disengagement between opposing loving classes and its consequences. The presence of the caption of Bartleby the Scrivener A Tale of Wall Street has been given much consideration. The subtitle carries the baggage of the emerging capitalistic culture, but it also alludes to the confinement that walls enable. Melville strategically uses architecture in his short story, Bartleby the Scrivener to demonstrate the disengagement between social classes that capitalism produces. In the story, the narrator, representative of the upper class, controls the actual physical partition separating him and the scriveners, representative of the lower class. In the same way that he controls the sliding doors, the lawyer skirts religion and economic factors to control the separation between him and Bartleby. Architecture is also a part of Bartlebys characterization he is always staring at a brick wall. Melville is acknowledging Bartlebys inability to conquer the brick wall. Melville demonstrates in the relationship between Bartleby and the lawyer that the walls that separately puts up are not without consequence, ultimately leading to the finish of Bartleby. Whereas capitalistic culture constructs a sky-lit window of opportunity for the lawyer, Bartleby is bound to a vision of a brick wall. Melville also uses architecture to demonstrate the ways in which each character engages and disengages with the other. Ultimately, the architecture of the social classes that a capitalistic culture produces results ... ...r hand, Bartleby is unable to conquer the confines of the lawyer, but he does find a way to manipulate them in order to subvert the authority of the lawyer. The walls that the lawyer and the scrivener use disguise the bonds of common huma nity that Melville is interested in uncovering. Because the lawyer ignored the brotherlike bond between them, he refused to recognize Bartleby as an individual, ultimately causing Bartlebys erasure, through starvation.Works CitedBarnett, Louise K. Bartleby as Alienated Worker. Studies in Short manufacturing 6.4 (1974) 379-385. Print.Marx, Karl. The Communist Manifesto. Chicago Henry Regnery, 1954. Print.Melville, Herman. Bartleby, the Scrivener. Electronic Classics Series. Penn State U, 2002. 1-45. 18 Nov. 2010. Wilson, James C. Bartleby The Walls of Wall Street. Arizona Quarterly 37.4 (1981) 335-346. Print.