The Bartleby Archetype and Escaping Power, by Tom and Sophia

In “The Mesh of Power,” Foucault asks, “Why do we always conceive of power as law and prohibition, why this privilege?” (Foucault 3). He introduces “an analysis of power that would not simply be a negative, juridical idea of power, but rather, the idea of a technology of power” (Foucault 2). We are going to focus on the first technology of power that he describes, that of discipline, which for Foucault is “absolutely not saying, ‘you must not,’ but rather essentially obtaining a better performance, a better production and a better productivity” (6). By looking at “Bartleby the Scrivener” and its role in By the Sea, we want to explore in what ways Bartleby as an archetype establishes or symbolizes a technique of escaping power and how this technique interacts with the development of discipline.

The narrator in “Bartleby the Scrivener,” a lawyer with a firm on Wall Street, praises Bartleby for his discipline, which he believes will impact other workers at his firm. In the brief job interview that the narrator recounts with Bartleby, few words are exchanged and none are remembered, but the impression is long lasting. “A motionless young man one morning stood upon my office threshold...I can see that figure now--pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby” (Melville 15). The traits which the lawyer emphasizes here — neatness, respectability, and sadness — are in contrast to his description of his other clerks, Turkey, Nippers, and Ginger Nut, each of whom are adequate at their jobs, but have an indelible flaw. Turkey is a drinker, Nippers affected by anxious tendencies, and Ginger Nut, a twelve-year-old boy, is simply the clerk who fetches the other clerks lunch: together they lack the productivity the lawyer desires for his office. The lawyer hopes that bringing in Bartleby will have what Foucault refers to as a norming effect, increasing the productivity of the other workers without imposing actual prohibitions on them. “I engaged him,” he says, “glad to have among my corps of copyists a man so singularly sedate an aspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty temper of Turkey and the fiery one of Nippers” (Melville 15).  

Here we begin to see the emergence of a technique of escaping the power of discipline: the appearance of discipline and the use of this appearance to infiltrate the apparatus. Without his important first impression, Bartleby would not have been hired by the lawyer and entered into a position where his refusal would have consequences. Let’s look at the first instance of this refusal and try to develop a view of this as an archetype. The narrator summons Bartleby to his desk to review some legal copy with the “natural expectancy of instant compliance” as his boss (Melville 17). But without moving from his desk, Bartleby “in a singularly mild, firm voice” says “‘I would prefer not to’” (Melville 17). From this brief exchange, we can make several observations. First, the surprise of the refusal hinges on an expectation. The lawyer’s assumption that Bartleby will automatically respond to his request is connected to his position as a boss and the subservience he commands from his other workers. This subservience is immediate and verbal, the clerks frequently addressing him with words like “‘With submission, sir’” at the beginning or end of their sentences (Melville 9). The tone of the refusal is unemotional but “firm.” Bartleby’s lack of emotion was initially a reason for his hiring, but here it proves effective when turned against the order of the boss, stunning him into silence. Bartleby makes no move to come towards the lawyer, but with his words, he remains still at his desk. The refusal comes as an individual response. In describing the duties of his clerks, the lawyer talks about their frequent collaboration. However, in asserting “I would prefer not to” Bartleby is effectively separating his labor from his fellow workers. But is he really refusing? Bartleby’s response works because the lawyer does nothing to compel him against his preference, but it implies that it is not an outright refusal, that he could be compelled to do the task. This creates an intense sensation of anger in the lawyer. He thinks, “Doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises,” but instead he calls on Nippers to do the work for him, leaving Bartleby alone (Melville 18). Bartleby’s technique works by operating within the framework of discipline — Bartleby’s deferential tone; that he stays at his desk, in the position to do the work, even though he won’t produce — at the same time that it deviates from the norm on the individual level.

“Bartleby the Scrivener” crops up throughout By the Sea, at first subtly within the narration (Saleh describes how Rachel, his asylum case worker, wants him to buy a telephone, “but I prefer not to” [Gurnah 41]). Later, Saleh reveals to Rachel that he does in fact speak English and she asks him why he hadn’t said so: “‘I preferred not to,’ I said, glancing at the brick wall through the window opposite me” (Gurnah 65). Thus begins the novel’s Bartleby motif, in which Saleh positions himself as a type of “Bartleby” and he, Rachel, and Latif repeatedly discuss the story and their varying interpretations of it. Saleh tells Latif that “for some reason I was reminded of it when I arrived here” (Gurnah 158). One sees this explicitly when the brick wall out the window of Rachel’s legal office reminds Saleh of the imagery in the story, but it also applies more generally to his situation as a refugee, to his enmeshment in a system of power whose actors do not know or care to understand his backstory. Upon his arrival in England, Saleh is not punished or told “you must not”; rather, he is disciplined, expected to present himself as the “right” type of refugee who could be a productive member of British society were he granted asylum, to conform to “the principle of the norm” (Foucault 15). He writes, “I feel defeated by the overbearing weight of the nuances that place and describe everything I might say, as if a place already exists for them and a meaning has already been given to them before I utter them” (Gurnah 68).

Saleh references “Bartleby” to resist this discipline, to refuse to produce what is expected of him by “preferring not to.” But in doing so, he deploys an archetype and again speaks words that already have a meaning attached to them. Saleh convinces Rachel to read the story, and she does not love it as Saleh and Latif do: “Too much gloom and resignation in it, she thought, and the symbolism was oppressive … Too much self-pity for all her liking” (Gurnah 168). Her interpretation is not necessarily to be taken at face value, especially coming from someone who, although she is trying to help Saleh, is neglecting to learn about his past, who is perhaps not aware of the oppressive system — in Zanzibar but also as a refugee in England — from which he is attempting to escape. However, this causes Saleh to reconsider his own interpretation of what he and Latif agree is “a beautiful story” (Gurnah 65, 156).

In the final pages of the novel, Saleh takes his first trip to London to stay with Latif. Echoing By the Sea’s first “Bartleby” reference, Latif encourages Saleh to buy a telephone: “‘I have no urge to do so,’ I said, and saw him smile. I thought I knew what he was thinking. He would have preferred me to say, I prefer not to. But I had been thinking of what Rachel had said, and thought I would read ‘Bartleby’ again before speaking his words as the utterings of an admired desperado” (Gurnah 244). Saleh rephrases his refusal, retaining the sense that he has no desire to produce what is expected of him by societal norms, but destabilizing his position as a “Bartleby,” sidestepping the technique of escaping power that he has until now been deploying. This raises the question: Is Bartleby’s technique necessarily a good thing? What consequences does using this technique have on the bodies of “Bartlebys”? Saleh may have realized that he’s pigeonholed himself by citing the “I would prefer not to,” that Latif and Rachel each read him in a particular way based on their personal interpretations of the story. By calling into question Bartleby’s status as “an admired desperado,” Saleh raises an even more fundamental question. There seems to be an underlying assumption that Bartleby’s technique of escaping power is successful, but does it really work?