Biblical Inversion and the Ends of Christianity

Abstract

This chapter discusses the presence of Christian symbolism in Herman Melville's short story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (1853). It demonstrates that many of the acknowledged and unrecognized allusions to the Bible found in the story are ironically inverted so as to call into question the biblical teachings on charity to which many of them refer. In keeping with Melville's skeptical mind-set throughout the 1850s and beyond, “Bartleby” ostensibly faults the narrator for not living up to his tepid Christian faith through his ultimate failure to exercise a life-saving charity toward his troublesome employee. However, it also implicitly demonstrates the impossibility of adhering to New Testament ethical standards within a newly urbanized industrial economy based on rationalized self-interest. By the same token, the character of Bartleby subversively embodies the Christian ideal of ascetic withdrawal from the world, demonstrating the absurdist and potentially suicidal consequences of such an ideal. This reading of “Bartleby” shows how Melville's story ironically—and often comically—critiques the Protestant culture of his era by revealing that the central doctrines of Christianity promoting social responsibility and nonmaterial values are cultural relics in a world of competitive individualism and a rapidly developing market economy.