Bartleby's quiet but impenetrable resistance totally isolates him from the rest of the characters in the story. This demonstrates paradoxically both the power of human will and its dangerous nature – as individual and unique creatures, Bartleby shows us both what we are capable of and how harmful it can be. ![]() However, though Bartleby is physically weak, he has incredible mental strength his passive resistance to anything demanded of him or suggested to him is unbreakable. The image depicted here is not healthy one, to put it mildly. ![]() First of all, look at the adjectives Melville uses over and over to describe the scrivener: pallid, forlorn, even cadaverous. Rather than flailing around in the murky waters of psychoanalysis, let's take a look at what we do know, and what it might mean. ![]() Any attempt to describe Bartleby's character would be futile, since we have practically no information on him. What exactly is it that makes Bartleby what he is? Why can't he just compromise like the rest of us do and get along with society? Finally, what would he prefer to do? None of these questions are answerable, and all of them have occupied readers of "Bartleby the Scrivener" for the past century and a half. Bartleby is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma – and, much to some readers' frustration, this conundrum goes unsolved at the end of the story.
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