Bartleby

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Symbolistic Walls that Trapped Bartleby Behind
Melville intended to create a portrayal of a man who is incomprehensible to the narrator and the reader. The walls symbolize the boundaries used by Bartleby to enclose himself from the rest of the world. The desk faces a window pane that allowed little light to lit the room. Instead of the desk facing an open landscape, it faces a wall lying three feet from his window (Furui, 1). Also, Bartleby is portrayed located behind a tall green hinged screen blocking him off from the world. The walls symbolize the isolation from the rest of the offices and to a more significant extent from other people.
Additionally, Bartley spends a lonely life in the office and avoid sharing anything to his colleagues. He instead spends hours staring at the wall which the narrator describes as the dead brick wall and the narrator conclude it as dead-wall reveries which start taking much of the Bartleby time (Furui, 5). Also, the name of the street where the Bartleby office is located is known as the wall street. The wall street symbolizes a disconnected community within. Consequently, the narrator adds that there is no office address inscribed on the lawyer’s office wall and instead it is always written as “No – wall street. By making the office address unclear, it portrays how New York business sector operates in isolation (Furui, 9).
Additionally, walls depiction become more frightening the moment Bartleby is gone to prison and instead of being taken to a cell, he otherwise is taken to an enclosure bounded by walls of great thickness which signify disconnected isolation (Furui, 13).

When the lawyer visits Bartleby, he can visualize prisoner’s eyes from the cells gazing towards Bartleby. Therefore, even though Bartleby can’t envision other felons, they can perceive him through the fissures on the wall which signify separation and disconnection (Furui, 16). The story ends with walls symbolizing Bartleby death after he was disconnected from all the people. When the narrator visits Bartleby in the tombs, he finds him throng together at the base of the wall, and he dies inside the prison walls after no outlet (Furui, 19).

Work-Cited
Furui, Yoshiaki. “Bartleby’s Closed Desk: Reading Melville against Affect.” Journal of American Studies (2017): 1-19.