SOURCE: "Melville: 'One Royal Mantle of Humanity'," in Democratic Humanism and American Literature, The University of Chicago Press, 1972, pp. 159-97.

Kaplan is an American poet and critic. In the following excerpt, Kaplan explores the metaphysical implications of "Bartleby" by comparing Bartleby and Moby Dick 's Captain Ahab.

It would be plausible to read "Bartleby the Scrivener" as social criticism; the setting is Wall Street and the man is the palest of the imprisoned office clerks who could symbolize human alienation in modem bureaucratic and technological society. But most would agree that this would be as limited a reading as the same emphasis would be for Kafka. It has been reported by several critics, chief among them Lionel Trilling and Richard Chase, that American writers of the classic period had little interest in social realism, the depiction of life styles and manners, the analysis of specific social conflicts. The...