SOURCE: "The 'Incurable Disorder' in 'Bartleby the Scrivener'," in Delta, England, Vol. 6, May, 1978, pp. 79-93.

In the essay below, Joswick compares thematic aspects of "Bartleby the Scrivener" to those of Melville's controversial novel Pierre.

"Pray leave me; who was ever cured by talk?"

Herman Melville, The Confidence-Man

"Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" was Melville's first publication following what the majority of contemporary reviewers considered his most disastrous and blasphemous novel. Because of that scathing critical condemnation of Pierre, which included suggestions of insanity about its author, many twentieth-century readers have tried to resolve the enigmas of "Bartleby" by finding in this remarkable story a bitter commentary on Melville's fate as a writer in America. Such readings usually seek to identify Melville's career, or his estimate of it, with Bartleby's, arguing that Bartleby's occupation, and the rewards he received from it, are a sarcastic parody of...