"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A story of Wall Street", tells the story of Bartleby, a character who seems to not have a care in the world and only does what he wants. By reading the story on its own, it can be difficult to deduce the reasoning behind his peculiar behavior. This was the case for me until I read "Pantopticism", by Michel Foucault. The short story brought up many good points and ideas that were applicable to Melville's story about Bartleby. Some of the main focal points of "Pantopticism" are power and how hierarchical systems work in society. These and many more points opened my eyes and allowed for me to see a different interpretation of Bartleby. By looking at "Pantopticism", by Michel Foucault, we are able to see a new interpretation of "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A story of Wall Street" by Herman Melville, which is that Bartleby is rejecting the pre determined steps that everyone takes in life, which makes him unlike any other character in the story.

Bartleby is different from every other character, he goes against the flow and is not just another cog in the corporate machine like the rest of the characters of the story. "Pantopticism" brings up the interesting notion of "binary branding" which is "The constant division between the normal and the abnormal, to which every individual is subjected" (347). So in Bartleby's case you either conform to society or you are an outcast and thrown in jail. For instance, none of the characters in "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A story of Wall Street" have an actual name given to them based on their characteristics. In a sense, the characters have lost their true identity in this capitalistic cycle on Wall Street. But as Bartleby refuses to conform, he keeps his individualism. This is shown in how multiple times throughout the story where the narrator thinks of his characteristics to try to come up with a nickname for him, like he had done with the rest of his employees, but he is unable to do so. As the story concludes, the downfalls of binary branding begin to surface, where the minority are marginalized if they do not cooperate with the majority, this is seen by Bartleby being thrown in jail for not following the rules that were given to him. And at the end of the story when faced with starving to death he continued to deny meals since "It would disagree with me; I am unused to dinners." (396). He chose death rather than losing his identity and conforming.

Bartleby decides to do what he wants to do instead of conforming to what society thinks is expected of you to do. The story of Bartleby is very comparable to the disease stricken town in Pantopicism. The people living in that town are forced to follow a very strict set of rules given to them by the authority ruling over them, if they disobey any of the given rules, they are killed. In addition to this, there is an established hierarchal system in place where reports go from "the syndics to the intendants, from the intendants to the magistrates or mayor" (p.345). This goes hand in hand with Bartleby's situation and sheds some light on why he acted the way he did. By looking at the two stories side by side, one interpretation that you could make is how in "Pantopicism", not following orders results in death, but in "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A story of Wall Street", not following orders results in being fired. But in today's society, you could argue that death and being fired are synonymous since if you were to lose your job you wouldn't be able to afford all of the things necessary for living until you found a new one. In "Pantopticism, no one would dare break the rules as life is the most precious thing that all of us posses and in Wall Streets case where Bartleby resides, the characters believe that their job is their life. This is one of the main reasons why the narrator is shocked that Bartleby would refuse an order and risk being fired. When he first heard Bartleby politely refuse, "[he sat awhile he perfect silence, rallying [his] stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived [his], or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood [his] meaning." (376). The narrator could not fathom why anyone would ever say such a thing because Bartleby is throwing away is job (or his life in the case of "Pantopicism")

 In both stories, you never hear of a character besides Bartleby who breaks the rules. They all do as they are told to by society without a word of resistance. This very point is brought up in "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A story of Wall Street" when the narrator confronts Turkey about his poor work in the afternoon only to hear his response that "I am getting old. Surely, sir, a blot or two of a warm afternoon is not to be severely urged against gray hairs. Old age - even if it blot the page   is honorable. With submission, sir, we both are getting old." (372). This brings up the interesting realization that both Turkey and the narrator have been doing their jobs for a very long time. Turkey mentioning that working until old age is honorable could be from the idea that to fit into society you must continue the cycle of being born, growing up working, retiring and then passing away to make way for the next generation. Unlike Turkey and the narrator, Bartleby decides not to partake in that cycle of life. When he first took the job to work as a Scrivener he worked very hard and he did not show any resistance towards the cycle or the work he was doing. But, later on in the story he ceased all activity and refused to work, leave the office, or even eat. Bartleby's transition from a hard working, productive member of society, to an unwanted outcast could stem from a number of different reasons. My hypothesis is that he first got the notion to act the way he did was from his job working as a subordinate clerk in a dead letter office. Just as the letters he was working with had no opportunity to be sent or received, Bartleby must have realized that he also does not have an opportunity to hope, to hope that one day he might be able to escape the vicious cycle brought down on him by society. 

Instead of conforming to society, Bartleby disobeyed authority and he didn't do anything that he did not want to. But, this what led to his downfall and ultimately his demise. As seen in the story, that sort of behavior is unacceptable in todays society. In order to be a productive member of a community you are going to have to sacrifice things and do other things that you wouldn't normally do. It's easy to fault for his actions but by looking at the points and ideas expressed in Bartleby, the Scrivener: A story of Wall Street" as well as "Pantopticism" we can see there is a hint of a method to his madness.

