1. Where can I get Bartleby?
This is a website where you can get it as a free eBook.
I can you the PDF if you me first.
You can Google it and find a million versions online.
If you do not have online or eBook access, you can check out a copy with me.

2. Herman Melville

3. Melville Biography Timeline
1819 b. New York
1830 family bankrupt
family falls apart; H.M. drops out of school
1839 1st voyage at sea

4. Timeline cont. 1841-1848 experiences at sea=37 books about it
At first popular reading & commercial success
on ships Acushnet and Lucy Ann
1844 Published the travel narrative, Typee
1847 Marries Elizabeth Shaw; Publishes another travel narrative: Omoo
But wants to change writing, wants meaning; wants to rebel, write banned books
1849 Mardi and Redburn—failures critically and financially

5. Timeline cont.
1850 White Jacket; develops friendship with Nathaniel Hawthorne
Returns to “popular fiction” but hates it
Melville to Hawthorne (while working on Moby Dick): “Dollars damn me. [What I feel] most moved to write, that is banned—it will not pay. Yet altogether, write the other way I cannot. So the product is a final hash, all my books are botches.”

6. Timeline cont. 1851 Moby Dick
Topic: 800 pages about guy trying to find whale and get back at it
Not as much of failure as Mardi, but not successful; received little notice
Wants to write novels written at two different levels
Said to Hawthorne: “secret motto that few would discern”
Said about Hawthorne’s books: “are superficially calculated to deceive—egregiously deceived, the superficial skimmer of books”

7. Timeline cont.
Pierre, Israel Potter, trip to Europe, edits Hawthorne’s works, The Confidence Man
Moderate success, but the public wants sensational literature like his previous travel narratives.
1867 abandons fiction
Magazine writing to make $
Publishes short stories in Europe (including “Bartleby”)
Emotionally wrung out from failures, careful of issues of offensiveness, still trying out technique of writing for two audiences at once .

8. 1866-1886 Job in Custom House (government job); sons die (suicide)
Timeline cont.
Job in Custom House (government job); sons die (suicide)
1886 Inheritance
1891 H.M. dies
1920 H.M. rediscovered as an author

9. Clear your desk except for a writing utensil!

10. When you are done with the quiz, place your writing utensil on the floor!

11. Bartleby, the Scrivener
By Herman Melville

12. Basic Plot The lawyer’s business grows, so he hires a new copier.
Bartleby does good work as a copier.
Bartleby refuses to proofread and would prefer to work by himself.
Eventually, Bartleby refuses to copy.
Then he refuses to leave.
The narrator discovers Bartleby is living in his office.
He moves offices.
New owner has Bartleby arrested for loitering.
Bartleby dies in prison.

13. Characters
Narrator (lawyer)
Turkey
Nippers
Ginger Nut
Bartleby

14. Author’s Choice
What part do the setting and the subtitle ("A Story of Wall Street") play in the story? Why does the narrator so frequently mention walls, screens, windows, and views?
Why do you think the author not give any character a real name?
What commentary might Melville be making about office life?

15. What is up with Bartleby?

16. What’s up with Bartleby?
Article
Bartleby
Bartleby is depressed
Bartleby is a con artist
Bartleby represents Melville’s professional life

17. What is up with Bartleby?
Accountable Talk

18. What is up with Bartleby?
Keep up with Accountable Talk expectations.
Be respectful.
Stay on topic.
Cite evidence.
You may add theories to the discussion as long as you have evidence to back it up.
Theories such as “Bartleby was in love with the brick wall” do not qualify.