Good-bye, Bartleby; I am going--good-bye, and God some way bless you; and take that, slipping something in his hand. But it dropped to the floor, and then,--strange to say--I tore myself from him whom I had so longed to be rid of. (1129)Finally, as the narrator better understands his connection to Bartleby, the ghostly descriptions of Bartleby are now extended to the narrator. He describes going up the stairs to his old office as "going upstairs to my old haunt" (1130 Italics are mine). The language is part of the expansion of Bartleby's ghastly characteristics to the narrator and later, to all of humanity. The narrators change is more evident at this point. He is being described as the same sort of apparition as Bartleby. [Bartleby] now persists in haunting the building generally (1129 Italics are mine). The fact that the similarities are now being shown so blatantly demonstrates the change in the narrator, as they are his own words. The sequel in Bartleby the Scrivener sees the narrator explaining how Bartleby came to look for a job at his office. The narrator gives a description, which he has fashioned, of the goings on at the Dead Letter Office in Washington. Notice the stories that the narrator associates with these letters: all tragic stories of blocked communications. Since he is creating the stories, it seems clear that he has been touched deeply by his experience with Bartleby. It is doubtful that the lawyer at the beginning of the story, as he pictured himself, could have imagined such personal tragedies. Here we see the denouement. The culmination of the change that Bartleby has affected in the lawyer. Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity! (1134)This final sentence shows a depth of emotion that would have been impossible for the narrator at the beginning of the story. This obvious change gives readers the evidence that Melville was trying to display in support of his view of the negative aspects of the business world. This...
