The narrator and Bartleby - main characters in Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville - are opposite sides of the same coin. Their perspectives and connections to life seem similar. However, the narrator thrives in post-revolutionary, post-industrial, capitalist society. Bartleby, on the contrary, wasted away there. Bartleby's humanity is taken away from him, which ultimately kills him. Bartleby is the by-product of this new America; the narrator is the potential product. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay The narrator's choices limit his perspective. He is unaware of the extent to which he is surrounded by walls, figuratively and physically. One of its windows overlooks “the white wall of the interiors of a spacious dormer window” (1088). This view being somewhat "deficient in what landscape painters call 'life'... the other end of [his] apartments offers... a contrast... a clear view of a high brick wall" ( 1088). He even calls this configuration a “huge square cistern” (1087) – a receptacle intended to retain rain, stagnant or waste water. He is locked away and drowned in his life and yet he cannot see her. This blind acceptance of capitalism, the new conceptions of paid and dead work, this “easy life”, this is what Melville criticizes. Melville's narrator is nothing more than an "unambitious lawyer" (1087), perfectly adapted to his life in the emerging new corporate America. In this America, people are moving away from the self-sustaining lifestyles of agriculture and taking mind-numbing jobs like Scrivener's. The narrator is convinced that “the simplest way of life is the best” (1087). Nothing “[turbulent]… energetic… [or] nervous… [did he] ever suffer to invade [his] peace” (1088). The narrator is a “sure man” (1087) incapable of understanding difficulties or his neighbor. He believes in the four cardinal humors and understands only superficial appearances. He talks about Turkey as if Turkey were a furnace. After noon, Turkey "is flambéed like a grate full of Christmas coals... its face is inflamed with augmented blazons as if cinnamon coal had been heaped on anthracite" (1088). Although these are the effects of a few beers at lunchtime, the narrator cannot connect these beers to the coping mechanisms at this job. Nippers' outward frustrations with his work are evident in that he "never can make his table fit him" (1089). Even though the narrator is aware that Nippers wants to "get rid of the scribe's table altogether" (1089), it is not because of his bad work, it is because Nippers suffers from the "evil powers [of] the “ambition” (1089). In the realm of capitalist ideology, an employer cannot realistically show complete empathy towards their employee. Priority goals of making money conflict with a completely satisfied staff. The narrator is simply unable to empathize with his team, which makes him ideally suited to his position. Bartleby and the narrator seem incomplete. Looking at the Four Cardinal Moods, as the narrator does, Bartleby is governed primarily by the Sanguine and the Melancholic. Sanguines, as it were, abandon themselves to a varied flow of images and sensations. Melancholic people have the feeling of not being masters of their bodies; the physical body is in control. Melancholic people experience this lack of control in the form of pain or a feeling of discouragement. Bartleby, being walled in, cannot see himself..