Bartleby, the villain in Bartleby, the Scrivener Herman Melville's short story, "Bartleby, the Scrivener", poses many moral questions, but refuses to answer them clear and clear manner. Unfortunately, Melville's ambiguities have led to unusual interpretations regarding the ethics of the anonymous lawyer who narrates the story. Although it may seem perfectly obvious to most of us that he goes out of his way to be sensitive to Bartleby's needs, starting with the narrator allowing him to abstain from certain duties, to s to abstain from all his duties, to let him make his office his post. accommodation, to offer him beyond what he owes Bartleby and to secure another position for him, even to invite him to live with him in the lawyer's own house. As Harold Schechter says, the narrator is meant to “be a model of earthly morality” (359). And, as Donald H. Craver and Patricia R. Plante explain, "The most widely accepted contemporary interpretations of 'Bartleby' have centered on the theme of human brotherhood or some variation thereof. Through Bartleby's passive resistance against everything the methodical law firm serves, the unnamed narrator is gradually lured from his cautious, safe, uncommitted position until he is burned by the blazing revelation that we are , all of us, both interdependent and desperate (132). Yet some critics argue that the lawyer has no ethics, that everything he does is out of self-interest and is immoral. One of the critics who thinks this way is Thomas Pribek. Pri...... middle of paper ......rator who fails to save the irredeemable, because he at least tried. Works Cited Craver, Donald H. and Patricia R. Plante. “Bartleby or the ambiguities.” Studies in Short Fiction 20.2-3 (Spring-Summer 1983): 132-136.Melville, Herman. “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A History of Wall Street.” Anthology of American Literature: Volume I: From Colonial to Romantic. Ed. George McMichael. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1993. 1301-1326. Mitchell, Thomas R. "Dead Letters and Dead Men: Narrative Purpose in 'Bartleby, the Scrivener'." Studies in Short Fiction 27.3 (Summer 1990): 329-338.Pribek, Thomas. "The 'Safe' Man of Wall Street: Characterizing Melville's Lawyer." » Studies in Short Fiction 23.2 (Spring 1986): 191-195. Schechter, Harold. Short fiction studies "Bartleby the Stopwatch" 19.4 (fall 1982): 359-366.