Point of view

Who tells the story? - the first person narrator, who is flawed but human…He's reliable, we trust him. His actions definitely support what he tells us about himself; especially the part about being a man who likes to take the "easy" way. What else is gained by telling this story from the Boss's perspective? Why not Bartleby's perspective? Why not one of the other clerks?

The story is being interpreted through the lawyers eyes. As the story keeps going we see that he indeed likes to take the easy way. One example of this was when the boss had enough of Bartleby and decided to move without taking him and leaving him in the office. This shows that since the lawyer cannot handle the strange behaviors of Bartleby he decides to finally quit leave him his check of money and migrate to a new place. What is gained from us hearing the story from the boss's point of view is that we are able to examine all the tension and emotions that each character hold within. We are able to interpret ideas and thoughts such as the lawyers change in attitude toward Bartleby. Using the boss's perspective also allowed the story to experience and witness if he truly is a prudent man and has learned patience by working with others. We also witness that the lawyers ego disappears of him desiring just to use his employees to his benefit and through this person we obtain access for us to get close to Bartleby. One reason why I believe using Bartleby's perspective would not have beenl the best selection was because even though he was a major character in this story his ideas were not open for the reader to see. Aside from that what I can infer from how Bartleby was he did not have much emotions after his work career at the dead letter office. His demonstration of character was also not exposed till about the end of the passage and did not have much dialogue throughout the story except "I prefer not to." Overall the usage of Bartleby's point of view for this story would result in a monotonic story with no excitement to continue on reading because of the repetition that Bartleby makes; also because we would not know how anyone thought since Bartleby isolated himself from everyone except when he brought to his office a woman. The other clerks would not be ideal people to view perspectives from is because these people do not manage to be at their best the whole day instead Turkey is energetic at day and towards the afternoon he gradually falls while Nippers is the exact opposite.