Virtual Intercourse: A Scrivener's Experience in the Non-Being Starting with the narrator's claim that he was going to relate a story about Bartleby, "the strangest [scrivener] I ever saw or heard of," Melville begins a juxtaposition where everything but Bartleby is discussed in some detail. The resulting circumvention causes Bartleby to be discussed more as a causal force than as a human. While the narrator admits he has limited information about Bartleby, he makes little …showed first 75 words of 544 total…

…showed last 75 words of 544 total…story that the author believes the narrator had a larger duty to aid Bartleby than he exhibited. The tragic nature of the story's end, where the narrator comes back to visit Bartleby a mere 20 minutes after he has passed on, brings closure to Melville's point that our individual responsibility to our fellow man cannot be taken lightly or just occasionally on a whim when it might seem convenient. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Bibliography** Herman Melville_Bartleby the Scrivener