Herman Melville (1819–1891). Bartleby, the Scrivener. 1853.

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“My chambers were up stairs at No. — Wall-street. At one end they looked upon the white wall of the interior of a spacious sky-light shaft, penetrating the building from top to bottom. This view might have been considered rather tame than otherwise, deficient in what landscape painters call “life.” But if so, the view from the other end of my chambers offered, at least, a contrast, if nothing more. In that direction my windows commanded an unobstructed view of a lofty brick wall, black by age and everlasting shade; which wall required no spy-glass to bring out its lurking beauties, but for the benefit of all near-sighted spectators, was pushed up to within ten feet of my window panes. Owing to the great height of the surrounding buildings, and my chambers being on the second floor, the interval between this wall and mine not a little resembled a huge square cistern” (page 5).

This quote that I chose off of page five shows that the corporate world isn’t so thrilling as the money makes it seem sometimes. This excerpt is a description of the office which is plain and almost can make a person depressed. The surroundings of Wall Street may seem great and big at one point, but to live there and call it a home or job, it is an unnatural place that is towers, and technology everywhere; no sense of live seems to be present. Work and its environment is stale and routine, although people adapt to it because of the money and success you gain through it. Like, for example, the narrator is a successful man, at great costs. The narrator becomes a slave to his own work, the environment making it seem like a prison.

The author explains a lot by going into detail about the environment. The landscape is very important to the character of your business or workplace, and in this small workplace it seems gloomy and monotonous. Bartleby cannot show enthusiasm for his work anymore, and doesn’t throughout the story, he just “would prefer not too.”