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Get everything you need to know about Dead Letters in Bartleby, the Scrivener. Analysis, related quotes, timeline.
At the end of “Bartleby the Scrivener,” the Lawyer reveals the one clue that he has found to Bartleby's history: a rumor that Bartleby once worked in the Dead Letter Office. The Lawyer believes this is the cause of Bartleby's strange behavior: “Dead letters! does it not sound like dead men?”
The narrator returns a few days later to check on Bartleby and discovers him dead of starvation, having preferred not to eat. Months later, the narrator hears a rumor that Bartleby had once worked in a dead letter office and reflects on how this might have affected him.
- Herman Melville
- 1853
Dead Letters in “Bartleby the Scrivener”. At the end of "Bartleby the Scrivener," the narrator (the Lawyer) reveals the one clue he has to Bartleby's history: a rumor that Bartleby once worked in the dead-letter office.
Quick answer: Bartleby is a clerk in the Dead Letter Office. In that position, he is exposed every day to communications that never achieve their intended purpose. This makes him retreat from...
In the dead letter office, Bartley aimlessly spends his time sorting letters that were sent to be destroyed. This repetitive task was both lifeless and pointless. The dead letter office, is Melville’s portrayal of the lackluster occupations in society that required employees to do repetitive tasks.
However, Bartleby, the former dead-letter office clerk, chooses not to protect himself from those who label him a threat to their materially oriented world.
