Psychoanalytical Criticism of Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville.
Psychoanalytical Criticism of Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville

Summary/Abstract: Herman Melville is a writer who is famous for his profound and in-depth explorations of the human psyche, thus his works have always been a very attractive subject for literary criticism. His Bartleby the Scrivener as one of the seminal short stories in world literature has elicited numerous and varied analyses of its mystifying story and main character. In our paper, we shall attempt to look at its main characters and narrative strategies through the perspective of psychoanalytical criticism, thus highlighting Melville as a precursor of psychoanalysis and its formative ideas. We will use the insights of Freud about the uncanny, Lacan’s theory of the Symbolic Order, and the link between language and the construction of the psyche in the analysis of the underlying psychological make-up of the character of Bartleby and the Notary Public. Finally, we shall utilize Deleuze and Guattari’s ideas to highlight the story as an example of the early criticism of capitalism and its dehumanizing effects.

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