The narrator and Bartleby - the main characters of Herman Melville's Bartleby the Scribe - are opposite sides of the same coin. Their perspectives and connections with life seem to be similar. However, the narrator thrives in the post-revolutionary, post-industrial, capitalist society. Bartleby, on the contrary, is consumed by it. Bartleby's humanity is stripped away from him, which ultimately kills him. Bartleby is the byproduct of this new America; the narrator is the potential product. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The narrator's choices limit his or her perspective. He doesn't realize how figuratively and physically he is surrounded by walls. From one of its windows you can see "the white wall of the interior of a large skylight" (1088). This view is somewhat "lacking what landscape painters call 'life'...the other end of [his] rooms offers...a contrast...an unobstructed view of a high brick wall" (1088 ). He even calls this configuration a “huge square cistern” (1087) – a receptacle for holding rain, standing, or sewage water. He is walled in and drowning in his life and yet he cannot see it. This blind acceptance of capitalism, the new notion of paid and dead work, this "easy life" is what Melville criticizes. Melville's narrator is nothing more than an "unambitious lawyer" (1087) perfectly suited to his life in emerging corporate America. In this America people are moving away from the self-sufficient lifestyle of farming and taking boring jobs like being a Scrivener. The narrator is convinced that "the simplest way of life is the best" (1087). Nothing "[turbulent]... energetic... [or] nervous... [has] ever suffered to invade [his] peace" (1088). The narrator is a "confident man" (1087) incapable of understanding difficulties or his fellow men. He believes in the Four Cardinal Humours and understands only superficial appearances. He talks about Türkiye as if Turkey were a furnace. After midnight Turkey is "burning like a grill full of Christmas coals...its face aflame with heightened blazon as if cannel coal had been heaped on the anthracite" (1088). While these are the effects of a few lunchtime beers, the narrator fails to connect those beers to coping mechanisms for this job. Nippers' external frustrations with his job are evident in the fact that he "[can] never find the right table for him" (1089). Although the narrator is aware that Nippers wants to "get rid of the scribe's table altogether" (1089), it is not because of the lousy work, but because Nippers suffers from the "evil powers [of] ambition" (1089). In the realm of capitalist ideology an employer realistically cannot be completely empathetic to his employee. Priority goals of making money conflict with a completely satisfied staff. The narrator is simply incapable of empathizing with his staff, making him perfectly suited to his position. Bartleby and the narrator seem incomplete. Looking at the four cardinal humors, as the narrator does, Bartleby is governed primarily by Sanguine and Melancholic. Sanguines abandon themselves in a certain sense to a varied flow of images and sensations. Melancholy people feel that they are not masters of their own bodies; the physical body is in control. Melancholics experience this lack of control as pain or feelings of despondency. Bartleby, being walled in, cannot exhibit a series of images and sensations to sustain him. Bartleby's body, being out of his control, fails; so he prefers to do nothing other than conform to.