{"id":"01KG6YGAX1M0DPG3X7QY6FWGZ4","cid":"bafkreigjfpdvy4cvq727h4gs5gv7phqls2dpkkwjrjaytehgb6hzghwhqy","type":"segment","properties":{"description":"# Bartleby's arrival and initial employment\n## Overview\nThis segment is a section of the short story \"[Bartleby, The Scrivener](arke:01KG6YFY3GPNBP5AAFESQKDTDR)\" by Herman Melville. It describes the arrival and initial employment of Bartleby in the narrator's office. The segment covers lines 260 to 316 of the source file \"[bartleby_the_scrivener.txt](arke:01KG6YDD8YHX9PCQE3NTAG8XF1)\".\n\n## Context\nThis segment is part of the \"[Melville](arke:01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF)\" collection. It follows the segment \"[Introduction of narrator and office setup](arke:01KG6YGAWZ3ZGNXTT8Q7AHTD77)\" and precedes the segment \"[First refusal and narrator's reaction](arke:01KG6YGAX1TVY16YAX937QASDK)\". The story explores themes of alienation, passive resistance, and the dehumanizing effects of modern work.\n\n## Contents\nThe segment details the narrator's need for additional help in his office and Bartleby's subsequent hiring. Bartleby is described as a \"motionless young man\" with a \"pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn\" appearance. The narrator hires him, hoping his sedate nature will positively influence the other scriveners, Turkey and Nippers. The narrator's office is divided into two parts, with Bartleby assigned a corner near a window that offers little to no view. The narrator also provides a green folding screen to isolate Bartleby. Initially, Bartleby performs an extraordinary amount of writing, but he does so silently, palely, and mechanically. The segment also explains the typical process of scriveners verifying their work and the narrator's intention to utilize Bartleby for this task.\n","description_generated_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:56.719Z","description_model":"gemini-2.5-flash-lite","description_title":"Bartleby's arrival and initial employment","end_line":316,"extracted_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:25.130Z","extracted_by":"structure-extraction-lambda","label":"Bartleby's arrival and initial employment","source_file":"01KG6YDD8YHX9PCQE3NTAG8XF1","start_line":260,"text":"must have additional help. In answer to my advertisement, a motionless\r\nyoung man one morning, stood upon my office threshold, the door being\r\nopen, for it was summer. I can see that figure now—pallidly neat,\r\npitiably respectable, incurably forlorn! It was Bartleby.\r\n\r\nAfter a few words touching his qualifications, I engaged him, glad to\r\nhave among my corps of copyists a man of so singularly sedate an\r\naspect, which I thought might operate beneficially upon the flighty\r\ntemper of Turkey, and the fiery one of Nippers.\r\n\r\nI should have stated before that ground glass folding-doors divided my\r\npremises into two parts, one of which was occupied by my scriveners,\r\nthe other by myself. According to my humor I threw open these doors, or\r\nclosed them. I resolved to assign Bartleby a corner by the\r\nfolding-doors, but on my side of them, so as to have this quiet man\r\nwithin easy call, in case any trifling thing was to be done. I placed\r\nhis desk close up to a small side-window in that part of the room, a\r\nwindow which originally had afforded a lateral view of certain grimy\r\nback-yards and bricks, but which, owing to subsequent erections,\r\ncommanded at present no view at all, though it gave some light. Within\r\nthree feet of the panes was a wall, and the light came down from far\r\nabove, between two lofty buildings, as from a very small opening in a\r\ndome. Still further to a satisfactory arrangement, I procured a high\r\ngreen folding screen, which might entirely isolate Bartleby from my\r\nsight, though not remove him from my voice. And thus, in a manner,\r\nprivacy and society were conjoined.\r\n\r\nAt first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if long\r\nfamishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my\r\ndocuments. There was no pause for digestion. He ran a day and night\r\nline, copying by sun-light and by candle-light. I should have been\r\nquite delighted with his application, had he been cheerfully\r\nindustrious. But he wrote on silently, palely, mechanically.\r\n\r\nIt is, of course, an indispensable part of a scrivener’s business to\r\nverify the accuracy of his copy, word by word. Where there are two or\r\nmore scriveners in an office, they assist each other in this\r\nexamination, one reading from the copy, the other holding the original.\r\nIt is a very dull, wearisome, and lethargic affair. I can readily\r\nimagine that to some sanguine temperaments it would be altogether\r\nintolerable. For example, I cannot credit that the mettlesome poet\r\nByron would have contentedly sat down with Bartleby to examine a law\r\ndocument of, say five hundred pages, closely written in a crimpy hand.\r\n\r\nNow and then, in the haste of business, it had been my habit to assist\r\nin comparing some brief document myself, calling Turkey or Nippers for\r\nthis purpose. One object I had in placing Bartleby so handy to me\r\nbehind the screen, was to avail myself of his services on such trivial\r\noccasions. It was on the third day, I think, of his being with me, and\r\nbefore any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined,\r\nthat, being much hurried to complete a small affair I had in hand, I\r\nabruptly called to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy of\r\ninstant compliance, I sat with my head bent over the original on my\r\ndesk, and my right hand sideways, and somewhat nervously extended with\r\nthe copy, so that immediately upon emerging from his retreat, Bartleby\r\nmight snatch it and proceed to business without the least delay.\r\n\r","title":"Bartleby's arrival and initial employment"},"relationships":[{"peer":"01KG6YFY3GPNBP5AAFESQKDTDR","peer_type":"short_story","predicate":"in"},{"peer":"01KG6YDD8YHX9PCQE3NTAG8XF1","peer_type":"file","predicate":"extractedFrom"},{"peer":"01KG6YCG626JN4FCG8QK17CQCF","peer_type":"collection","predicate":"collection"},{"peer":"01KG6YGAWZ3ZGNXTT8Q7AHTD77","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"prev"},{"peer":"01KG6YGAX1TVY16YAX937QASDK","peer_type":"segment","predicate":"next"}],"ver":3,"created_at":"2026-01-30T07:57:25.281Z","ts":"2026-01-30T07:57:56.926Z","edited_by":{"method":"manual","user_id":"01KFF5C36SQEVDHC9CBNZZJH9K"}}