Symbols in Bartleby

Symbols in Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street
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Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street, illustrates the essentiality of each person’s individuality in the character of Bartleby, who was hired as a scrivener in a law firm. The character challenges the superiority of capitalists by showing that the employees are not robots that merely comply with the directives of the higher-ups. Melville (2002) utilized symbolism in elaborating his short story, and this paper shall analyze three of the most exciting symbols, namely, the dead letters, food, and Bartleby himself.
First, Bartleby was rumored to have worked in the Dead Letter Office in Washington, dismissed by the administration. Melville (2002) states,
“Dead letters! Does it not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem more fitted to heighten it than that of continually handling these dead letters and assorting them for the flames (p. 29)?”
The dead letters symbolize apathy of the working class, who, like Bartleby, was living a non-exciting life because the middle classmen wo...