Bartleby The Scrivener by Melville

Bartleby the scrivener was an entertaining read. I found Bartleby to be a delight because he challenged the lawyer. His actions were like no one who had ever worked for the lawyer before. The lawyer was used to getting everything he asked for from his employees and Bartleby changed that. The fact that Bartleby replied that he would "prefer not to" to almost every request astounded the lawyer. As I began to analyze the story further for my paper I realized that Bartleby acts much like our unconscious. We can't tell our unconscious what to do, and we have no idea what is stored within our unconscious. The lawyer has no success in getting Bartleby to cooperate with even the simplest of office tasks and he doesn't really learn anything about Bartleby either. Freud believed that our unconscious has some influence in maintaining balance within the structure of our minds. So the fact that Bartleby is introduced into this story might suggest that the lawyer is having issues balancing his mental actions. The lawyer is overwhelmed dealing with Nippers and Turkey who both have their own personal inefficiencies. Bartleby seems like the perfect solution; however, just as we can't influence our unconscious mind, the lawyer is unable to bend Bartleby to his will. Overall, Bartleby causes the lawyer to question himself and perhaps that is just what the lawyer needed in order to remain sane.