Melville's Questions of Faith Shown in "Bartleby the Scrivener"

Melville’s Questions of Faith Shown in "Bartleby the Scrivener"

In Herman Melville’s life he had much concern with the imposing roles of faith and death. Through his younger years and into his old age, his morbid concerns passionately grew into an obsession. Much of his toiling energy was put into a short story "Bartleby the Scrivener". It is a deep examination into the questions and doubts of life’s purpose, asking whether it is filled with meaningless vanity or worthy destination. "Bartleby" dramatizes the conflict of two radically different spiritual personalities that battle out the concepts of faith and death. It was not written as an explanatory resolve to religion and faith, but an essay of the struggling search for an ultimate peace of mind. The acceptance of a certain religion was something that Herman Melville had not found for himself. A good friend of his, Nathaniel Hawthorne stated "Melville, as he always does, began to reason of Providence and futurity, and of ev...