Of Figures and Letters, or the Impossible Accounting of Bartleby

Abstract

Melville's most famous tale, "Bartleby the Scrivener," and his famous "I would prefer not to" have proved a fascinating focus of attention in Melville studies, thereby giving rise to a rich network of literary and philosophical interpretations. As Branka Arsić writes in the penetrating analyses of Bartleby, Passive Constitution, "if it is almost impossible to determine anything about [Bartleby], if he is forever lost, it is because the concepts of our familiar knowledge cannot comprehend him" (Arsić 10). From the outset, Arsić pinpoints one of the most problematic issues raised in the tale: it is impossible to "comprehend" Bartleby (from com -prehendere, 1 i.e. to find adequate ways to completely grasp him, catch hold of him, so as to get the full measure of the notoriously measured, abstemious scrivener). If comprehension may be achieved through textual measures or measurements, the purpose of such measuring should be to circumscribe, then contain an object, or a subject, to transpose it as accurately as possible onto the written page: in other words, to figure it.