"Bartleby, The scrivener": Man against Society.

Man versus society is the ideal theme of Herman Melville's incredible short story "Bartleby, The Scrivener". Bartleby, a copyist employed in the narrator's shop, stands different among all the workers. He is ghostly, uncommunicative, and repetitive. It appears as though Bartleby and Wall Street, the society he is in, cannot exist together. Bartleby is first introduced to us when he shows up for work, "In answer to my advertisement, a motionless young man stood upon …

…Office". The Dead Letter Office is considered to be a bad job because it is a place of dreariness where nothing joyful occurs. He is void of feeling, personality and individualism. Bartleby cannot adapt to the new environment he was placed after losing his job. By going to Wall Street, it made him more out of place. He is the epitome of what we don't strive to be and shows us this in many ways.