SOURCE: "'Bartleby': Melville's Critique of Reason," in Indian Journal of American Studies, Vol. 4, Nos. 1-2, June and December, 1974, pp. 66-71.

In the following excerpt, Gupta insists that the narrator of "Bartleby" represents reason, and that Bartleby, in confounding the narrator, emphasizes the inability of pure reason to negotiate human behavior.

"Say now, that in a day or two you will begin to be
a little reasonable:—say so, Bartleby."

"At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable,"
was his mildly cadaverous reply.

The unnamed narrator of "Bartleby" is an apostle of reason. His outlook on life is clear, unambiguous, and uncluttered by mysticism or imagination. Reason and common sense are his deities, and he looks upon them as infallible guides to human conduct.

All goes well with the narrator until he decides to engage as his new scrivener an inscrutable and "motionless" young man named...