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Alex Deng
Professor James Click
English 001B
7/12/15

Lack of imitation is physical suicide

Ralph Waldo Emerson argues in his essay Self-Reliance that in every man nonconventionality exists and through it they reach the source, at once the essence of genius, of
virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct (Emerson 8). He also claims that in the
process of becoming (wo)men, we become clapped into jails by our consciousness. The jail he
is referring to would be the series of conventions, standards and restrictions we unconsciously
accept upon ourselves to participate in human society. Bartleby, the impossibly stubborn,
depressingly stoic main character in Herman Melvilles Bartleby the Scrivener, has completely
escaped the social conventions that Emerson would label as jail. Despite the narrators
repeated attempts to convince Bartleby to fulfill his work as a Scrivener (a job which can
appropriately symbolize convention), Bartleby unfailingly deflects any entreaties with his
trademark phrase: I would prefer not to (Melville 12). Bartleby successfully avoids the
mediocrity of imitation, which Emerson likens to suicide, but the process of doing so ironically
results in his physical death. A step of logic could be made suggesting Bartleby was dead from
the beginning of the story, and that only one who is already dead can refute conventions so
absolutely. Melvilles allegory of society can be interpreted as a strong disagreement or rejection
of Emersons argument of the universal value of non-conventionality: that it is extremely
unrealistic for a person to survive while stubbornly resisting conventional framework.
Bartlebys story is an interesting, if not unique, case. The only perspective he can be
viewed from is that of Melvilles narrator, an unambitious lawyer with a thriving practice, who

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seems utterly incapable of being firm or decisive. He affirms: with a profound conviction that
the easiest way of life is the best (Melville 1), but goes to enormous lengths to avoid the
smallest conflict (choosing to move his office instead of remove Bartleby from it). The narrator
serves as a reference point of conventionality from which we can view and measure Bartleby.
Despite the possible unreliability of his analysis and observations, the narrator is perhaps the
only one capable of interacting with Bartleby for any extended length of time. Should Bartleby
have preferred not to do work for just about any other employer, he would have instantly been
fired. The narrator provides a useful environment for viewing Bartleby while also serves as a
reminder that Bartlebys physical death would have undoubtedly come sooner under a different
employer.
Melvilles Bartleby was a character built to exhibit non-conventionality at its most
exaggerated state, and within that unique workspace was able to visibly demonstrate the full
depth of his strangeness. However, this non-conventionality being unable to survive in normal
society serves as a message or an attack on Emersons argument on the universality of struggling
against convention. Emersons hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and
consistency (Emerson 6), is shown by Bartleby to be harmful, if not outright fatal to humans
who live in societies. Conformity is necessary for life, as Bartlebys death clearly reveals to us.
Emerson wishes for people to strive for the new: to discover, to invent, and to push the
boundaries of our previous limitations. He says of humans: The power which resides in him is
new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do (Emerson 1). He believes in
the infinite potential of man and it is true that to reach that potential one cannot be chained down,
blindly following conventions. Unfortunately, Emersons arguments sometimes fail to take into
account to the reality of human life. One of his arguments involve holding up famous people of

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history and pronouncing them as misunderstood but great, making a case to not mind being
misunderstood in order to break past a convention or self-imposed limit. But those great
people in addition to defying conventions also conceded in some way to pass on their
discoveries. Through charismatic persuasiveness, scientific protocol or other forms of
convention, they were able to connect with society and influence significant changes. Should
they have been stubbornly unconventional, they would have had no effective means of
communication to pass on and spread the knowledge that did make them Great. Whatever
insights (potential) Bartleby may have gained from his experiences will disappear along with
him, precisely because he failed to connect with his co-workers and employer.
Thanks to the unique opportunity to view Bartleby provided by the narrator, we can see
not only his non-conventionality but also his stagnation. Bartleby finds refuge in the office as a
scrivener, a job which, with its duties of repeatedly copying and transcribing legal information,
could be described as a perfect example of conventionality. Though in the first few weeks he
worked tirelessly, it was evident to the narrator that something was wrong with him: At first,
Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. [.] I should have been quite delighted with
his application, had he been cheerfully industrious. But he wrote on silently, palely,
mechanically (Melville 11). From the start of his employment the conventional narrator is
contemplating a possible absence of human life within Bartleby, regarding his work as
mechanical, and in time sees his automaton of an employee gradually breaks down.
Even before Bartleby breaks down, it seems that his presence is foreign, even
supernatural. Emerson mentions early in his essay that he: is ashamed to think how easily we
capitulate to badges and names (Emerson 3). He claims that conforming blurs the impression
of your character (Emerson 4), making it difficult to see or understand the true self. But

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Bartlebys refusal to capitulate does nothing to make his true self any clearer. He in fact, is
even more obscure considering that conventional labels and titles fail to capture his person;
something that he seems to prefer. The narrator as a result seems to almost subconsciously
consider him as a ghost or a corpse. Several times he internally refers to Bartleby as a ghostly
existence: the apparition of Bartleby appeared (Melville 20), what does conscience say I
should do with this man, or, rather, ghost (Melville 35). Bartlebys label-less state serves to
demonstrate his removedness from the realm of the living, even before his death.
Weeks into Bartlebys employment at the law office, upon first discovering Bartlebys
residence within his office, the narrator monologues: What I saw that morning persuaded me
that the scrivener was the victim of innate and incurable disorder. I might give alms to his body;
but his body did not pain him; it was his soul that suffered and his soul I could not reach
(Melville 23). The narrator, as a staunch supporter and practitioner of convention, cannot
imagine the non-conventional Bartleby to be anything other than an object of pity. While
Bartleby may not be properly understood by the narrator, his unwillingness to express himself
only serves to deepen the narrators certainty that something is in fact very wrong with him. The
narrator comes to an understanding that something vital, if not irreplaceable was broken within
Bartleby during his tenure in the dead letters office, henceforth, a dead man walking. And as
Bartleby himself refuses to communicate, his physical death through starvation of all things only
serves to cement this notion.
As an apex of non-conventionality, freely preferring not to conform, Bartleby perfectly
avoids the mental or spiritual death Emerson refers to when he writes: envy is ignorance; []
imitation is suicide (Emerson 1). In this sense Bartleby is more alive than any of the others in
the law office. However the Narrators descriptions of Bartleby often include words associated

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with the dead: pallid, cadaverous, morbid, and during Bartlebys first refusal of work: Had there
been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, had
there been anything ordinarily human about him (Melville 12-13). The narrator sees something
uncanny in Bartleby, or lack thereof. And this composure of Bartlebys seems unshakeable:
prison of all places could be considered a place of absolutely conventionality, in prison you must
conform, no matter what you prefer. But Bartleby still cheats prisons hold over him,
preferring to starve to death rather than finally conform. Despite seeming more dead than alive
throughout the entire story.
Upon accepting the interpretation of Bartlebys status as a living dead a contradiction
emerges in the earlier reasoning that humans practicing non-conventionality to the extreme lead
themselves to death. We instead can reverse cause and effect and conclude that extreme nonconventionality is a trait that can be associated with dead people. Melvilles message in
Bartleby the Scrivener seems to carry a bit of morbid irony: that Bartleby, or any purely nonconventional spirit can only properly exist in death. Emerson famously claims in his essay that
imitation is suicide, whereas Melville seems to almost mockingly rebut, through the allegory
of Bartleby, that (the) lack of imitation (in both societal norms and the literal job as a scrivener)
is physical suicide. People who cant concede the minimum required by conventional society
are inevitably ostracized from it, either by some form of exile or in Bartlebys extreme case:
death. Melvilles Bartleby the Scrivener makes a disconcerting case against Emersons universal
argument about the value of non-conformity.
Works Cited
Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Self-Reliance. Course Handout.
Melville, Herman. Bartleby the Scrivener. Course Handout.