Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville is a story about a lawyer in New York City who, for a majority of the story, deals with an different type of employee named Bartleby. In the decades prior to Herman Melville's writing of "Bartleby The Scrivener," the United States underwent a complex process of economic transformation. The building of superior surface roads, the introduction of railways, and the invention of the steamship for hauling goods upriver marked a transportation revolution. Steam and waterpower were new forms of labor-saving machinery that were developed as well as opportunities arose for acquiring and keeping capital. made possible by more numerous banks, new insurance companies, and state laws facilitating the creation of
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New York City's population increased from 124,000 in 1820 to 814,000 in 1860. The population growth resulted in a rapid rise in real estate prices that created a market for tall buildings like those that hem in the lawyer's office. The high cost of space in lower Manhattan also forced workers to search for cheaper housing elsewhere, thus creating the story's austere Wall Street setting that during evenings and Sundays is virtually devoid of human life. The building that houses the law office, described by the lawyer as a space "entirely unhallowed by humanizing domestic associations" (p. 36), further suggests the impersonality of Bartleby's work environment and the loneliness of his …show more content…
They also indicate the barriers that confine the workers to their mind-numbing, poor-paying jobs and prevent their social advancement. In addition they are outward markers of the ideological assumptions that separate the lawyer from his scriveners, preventing him from understanding them and having genuine compassion for their
New York City's population increased from 124,000 in 1820 to 814,000 in 1860. The population growth resulted in a rapid rise in real estate prices that created a market for tall buildings like those that hem in the lawyer's office. The high cost of space in lower Manhattan also forced workers to search for cheaper housing elsewhere, thus creating the story's austere Wall Street setting that during evenings and Sundays is virtually devoid of human life. The building that houses the law office, described by the lawyer as a space "entirely unhallowed by humanizing domestic associations" (p. 36), further suggests the impersonality of Bartleby's work environment and the loneliness of his …show more content…
They also indicate the barriers that confine the workers to their mind-numbing, poor-paying jobs and prevent their social advancement. In addition they are outward markers of the ideological assumptions that separate the lawyer from his scriveners, preventing him from understanding them and having genuine compassion for their