Studia Filologiczne UJK

Summary

The article brings up the issues of multi-dimensional silence of the title character in the short story Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street by Melville. The scribe’s behavior and his remarkable formula “I prefer not to”, repeated over and over again, undermine the everyday order in a law firm. Bartleby is sent to the narrator and forces him in this way to verify his views and ponder upon his own life. Such a unique form of communication is chosen to reflect the inability to express oneself through words. However, in spite of the scarcity of words the copyist communicates the narrator a lot more than any other character of Melville’s short story.
Much attention in the article is devoted to Melville’s repeated references to the Bible. The biblical allusions allow the reader to see Bartleby as a figure of Christ, which elevates the silence of the copyist and raises it to the level of mission similar to the mission of Christ.