416
PARTISAN REVIEW
uncommon precision . H e, who in bo th life and dea th sta red a t wa lls,
now stares a t th em no longer.
It
is a ll th e lawyer ever succeeds in do ing
for Bar tl eby.
T he stor y ends; onl y the sequel's " vague repo rt" rema ins. It is a
stor y of helpl essness-no t tha t of Bartl eby, but o f th e lawyer. T he
lawyer 's limits constitute his humanit y, which we sh are. H e in vites no t
condescension but fell ow fee ling . His story is one of un consumma ted
compass ion offered by one who -struggling aga in st impa ti ence, con–
vention , aversi on-grows in mo ra l accompli shment to the boundari es
of his poss ibilities and o f ours. To ascribe the story's course to fa ilings
o f the lawyer as a mere man of business, o r to an inn er condition of
Bar tleby's, is to shirk its demands and viol a te its texture. We must
ra ther as k wh y one who seems sil entl y to shriek fo r help not merely
refuses it but stands entirely outside th e scope of human engagement,
and wh y another, who does a ll he- or we-poss ibl y could to help, is in
the end reproach ed .
We are concern ed , th en , with the story's evident probl em-tha t of
helpin g and h elpl essn ess. There are mora l cla ims in the wo rld o f Wa ll
Street whi ch both a ttrac t and repel, which th e bes t effo rts o f o rdin ary
men canno t compass, but which they canno t di sown tho ugh strug–
gling to do so. Domin ant readin gs of the sto ry have seen it as a
demonstra tion tha t market society di sso lves binding ti es, p roducing
unspeakable wretchedness and a defi cient mo ra lity. Yet the text does
no t susta in crucia l aspects of such readings; mo reover, th e sense of
history on whi ch they rely is inadequ ate.
Bar lleby
does indeed address
issues of personal mo ra lity di stinctive to our time, but to ge t these right
we must situa te Melville's Wa ll Street bo th mo re precisely and mo re
broadl y. From it we must look backwa rd to grasp its problematic
character in terms contempo rary with the story and fo rward to loca te
w ithi n the sto ry itself the exac t source o f its reson ance with our own
time.
Underl yin g many vi ews of
Bartleby
h as been a hi sto ri cal vi sion of
which it is useful to cite a version at once Marxi st and romanti c:
Bourgeois socia l rela ti ons, by transfo rming ... a ll tender rel a tion s
between men to rela tion s between comllloditi es, p rep are th eir own
doom . The threads th a t bind feudal lord to liege, chief to tribe,
p a tri arch to h ou seho ld slave, fa th er to son, because th ey arc tender
are strong. But those th a t bind shareho lder
to
wage-empl oyee, civil
servant
to
tax-p ayer, and a ll men to the impersona l market, becau se
th ey are mere cash and devo id of tender rela ti ons, ca nno t ho ld .
