What Is the Man of the Crowd? His Preguration

Masaomi Kobayashi

Who is the man of the crowd? It is the title character a dierence is there between a London populace and that of Edgar Allan Poe’s 1840 story, which centers on an old of the most frequented American city” (155). Poe, who man who moves restlessly through the dimly-lit and spent his boyhood in London as well as Richmond, was densely-populated streets of London. What, then, is this inarguably conscious of his transatlantic readership. is man? e question has remained unanswered, or rather fact can be taken as an eective cue to broaden our hori- it has seldom or never been asked; for he has generally zons of the story with special reference to “Bartleby.” been seen as the type of the flâneur̶the voyeuristic “The Man of the Crowd” has more often than not idler/stroller originally from mid-1830s Paris. Following been drawn into comparison with “Bartleby,” since each Charles Baudelaire, and later Walter Benjamin, this g- narrator fails to read his subject as the product of an ur- ure has been open to broad interpretation in the transat- ban space conditioned by anonymity. Poe’s narrative lantic battle over Poe.1 Signicantly, however, even such subject is a city-dweller who constantly walks through an attempt to draw the story into the vast universe of the crowd, and Melville’s is a job-hunter who reportedly discourse has hardly been successful in unveiling the man worked in Washington, D.C. Both characters become il- of the crowd. It is hence worth reading this anonymous legible when they become part of their urban surround- character from another transatlantic perspective, namely ings. Still, it is possible to restore their personhood by in relation to the title character of Herman Melville’s shifting focus to their personal histories, or more speci- 1853 classic, “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall- cally, their past careers. e key is to nd an answer to Street.” the as-yet unasked question, “What̶not who̶is the By the end of the 1840s, New York had eclipsed its man of the crowd?” As we shall see, this quest is itself an commercial rival, Philadelphia, and Bartleby was one of attempt to explore this unnamed character’s potential the many jobseekers magnetized by this emergent me- connection with Bartleby, who plays an essential role in tropolis. Melville’s narrator takes a transoceanic look at addressing oce-worker characters as Bartlebys. the city by likening him to an isolated castaway: “[H]e seemed alone, absolutely alone in the universe. A bit of e Clerks: A Text within the Text wreck in the mid Atlantic” (37-38). In “ e Man of the Crowd,” too, the narrator takes such an extensive view of As writer-editor of the anthology, Blue Collar, White the city in order to accentuate its counterpart: “[S]o vast Collar, No Collar: Stories of Work, Richard Ford says, 1 One example is found in European Journal of American “Fiction, indeed, has plenty to tell us about work and its Studies, which once carried an opening essay entitled “From stamp on us” (x). is emphasis on work as an issue of Man of the Crowd to Cybernaut: Edgar Allan Poe’s Transatlan- great import in ction shows why he has been considered tic Journey̶and Back.” With specic emphasis on Poe’s narra- one of the major writers in the subcategory of realism̶ “ tor as the detective-as-physiognomist, the ontological quester, so-called dirty realism. Even as a reader of fiction, he and the flâneur,” the author declares: “I will show how these cannot resist considering what an important character three constants crossed, as it were, the Atlantic, received from Europe renewed impetus in the shape of a postmodern sensibili- does for a livelihood. What would he then think of “ e ty, and then returned to the New World, powerfully shaping the Man of the Crowd”? A conceivable reason why he has American detective genre” (Jahshan 1). never anthologized the story, let alone any other one by

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Poe, is that it makes no mention of what the title charac- iognomic reading of the crowd. Of particular note is that ter is. The reader is uncertain what he makes a living the rst group of passengers whom he describes at length from, as implied at the very outset of the story: “It was is clerks: well said of a certain German book that ‘es lässt sich nicht lesen’̶it does not permit itself to be read” (154). Driven e tribe of clerks was an obvious one and here I by a greater curiosity than ever in his life, the narrator discerned two remarkable divisions. There were transforms himself from a voyeur at a coee shop win- the junior clerks of ash houses̶young gentle- dow into a pursuer of “a decrepit old man, some six- men with tight coats, bright boots, well-oiled ty-ve or seventy years of age” (158). As a consequence hair, and supercilious lips. Setting aside a certain of his overnight chase through the busy nightly streets, dapperness of carriage, which may be termed he arrives at the conclusion that the old man is an illegi- deskism for want of a better word, the manner of ble text̶the very man of the crowd. these persons seemed to me an exact facsimile of One may suspect that this illegibility is in fact the what had been the perfection of bon ton about anonymous narrator’s. For one thing, he can be seen to twelve or eighteen months before. ey wore the have turned into another man of the crowd in the very cast-o graces of the gentry;̶and this, I believe, pursuit of the man who does not permit himself to be involves the best denition of the class. read. For another: “ e typical Poe story occurs within The division of the upper clerks of staunch the mind of a poet; and its characters are not indepen- firms, or of the “steady old fellows,” it was not dent personalities, but allegorical gures representing the possible to mistake. ese were known by their warring principles of the poet’s divided nature” (Wilbur coats and pantaloons of black or brown, made to 67). One of such typical stories is “The Man of the sit comfortably, with white cravats and waist- Crowd.” In light of Poe’s well-known stories of the dou- coats, broad solid-looking shoes, and thick hose ble, such as “William Wilson” and “ e Fall of the House or gaiters.̶ ey had all slightly bald heads, from of Usher,” it is hard to deny that the two main characters which the right ears, long used to pen-holding, had are their mutual mirror images, or even that the narrator an odd habit of standing o on end. I observed is what is called “an unreliable narrator.” Given that he that they always removed or settled their hats has just recovered from an unspecied illness of months, with both hands, and wore watches, with short is he really out in the streets in the first place? If he is gold chains of a substantial and ancient pattern. not, then it is that the whole story may have happened Theirs was the affectation of respectability;̶if only in the coee shop̶in his feverish mind̶just as it indeed there be an affectation so honorable. can be supposed that Bartleby may have been a psycho- (156) logical double for the lawyer-narrator: “The fact that Bartleby has no history, as we learn at the beginning of Apparently, each paragraph conveys an unfavorable view the story and in a later dialogue, suggests that he has of the clerks as those affected or overdressed. In either emerged from the lawyer’s mind. He never leaves the case, the passage as a whole is worthy of remark: it is the lawyer’s offices and he subsists on virtually nothing” most detailed description of workers in the story that (Marcus 366). Approached in this way, the story seems contains references to many dierent others, from pick- far from everyday reality and atypical of stories of work. pockets and gamblers to peddlers and streetwalkers̶ In “ e Man of the Crowd,” as we will see later, how- “beside these, pie-men, porters, coal-heavers, sweeps; ever, the similarity between the pursuer and the pursued organ-grinders, monkey-exhibiters and ballad mongers” matters in terms of work. e point that must be stressed (158). e depiction of the tribe of the clerks, no matter here is that Poe provides rather a realistic description of how satirical it is, can then be said to occupy a position those with jobs. e story opens with the narrator sitting of its own as a text within the text̶and herein lies part by the shop window for most of an afternoon. As eve- of the reason why it can be put in perspective with ning approaches, he directs attention from the inside to “Bartleby.” the outside of the room and grows engrossed in his phys- As Nikil Saval puts it in Cubed: A Secret History of the

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Workplace, “Clerks were once a rare subject in literature. by, Dan McCall refers to the ever-growing number of eir lives were considered unworthy of comment, their approaches to the story as “the Bartleby Industry.” As workplaces hemmed in and small, their work indescrib- implied by this term, there is no single interpretation of ably dull. And yet one of the greatest of short stories is Bartleby. Although many critics think of him as the au- about a clerk” (9). is story is none other than “Bartle- thor himself̶the one who suers writer’s block̶Mc- by.” In his essay “Bartlebys All!,” Saval addresses it as “the Call argues: “ e paradoxical achievement of the Bartle- locus classicus for discussions of early clerical work” since by Industry is that any of its single contributions in light “its casual treatment of the actual substance of work of all its others, and the enormous weight of all of them makes it unexceptional in the history of the literature of together, can only convince us that there never could the office” (22). Central to his view is that office fic- have been ‘a key’” (30). Does this lack of decisiveness in- tion̶fiction featuring office workers (e.g. clerks, civil dicate that “Bartleby” is altogether inaccessible to critical servants, and company employees)̶concerns itself with as well as general readers? e answer should be negative. politics rather than duties in oces, and this is certainly If their task is not to search for the answer to the ques- true of “Bartleby,” wherein the lawyer-narrator relates his tion, “Who is Bartleby?” then another question deserves relationships with his existing scriveners nicknamed to be asked: “What is Bartleby?” “Turkey” and “Nippers,” and with his newly employed By denition, as the story’s title shows, Bartleby is a one named “Bartleby.” The story centers around office scrivener̶a profession now extinct̶but, more general- politics between the narrator and the veteran and ly, a clerk. To repeat, he is reported to have been em- non-veteran clerks. In this respect, it can be compared to ployed as a clerk in the capital. Taking this background “ e Man of the Crowd.” In terms of form, the former as the most important clue, Richard R. John, an Ameri- story can be seen as an extension of the latter, and in par- can historian of communications, reads the story as that ticular, of its passage quoted above in which the narrator of an abrupt decline in social status. is approach ad- draws close attention to the clerks̶“the junior” and “the opted in his essay, “The Lost World of Bartleby, the upper.” e two-paragraph-long text dedicated to these Ex-Oceholder,” takes the following into full account: oce workers makes no specic mention of their oce Bartleby was once salaried as a government clerk, but work: the coined term “deskism” conveys how they look, now he, as a copying clerk, is paid by piece rate; since not how they work. Similarly, Bartleby’s clerical job is dead letter clerks were hardly socially or politically mar- quite minimally portrayed by limiting his actual work ginal individuals, he is possibly among the gentlemen period to less than three days. Just as demonstrated by manqué; and, although literacy was not necessarily indic- his recurring phrase, “I would prefer not to,” the action ative of social superiority, his mastery of calligraphy as a of the story is predominantly driven by his inaction. Tak- set of challenging skills and techniques is fairly suggestive en together, both stories suggest that it is harder than it of his quality education. All these considerations lend seems to name any number of office-worker characters themselves to explaining a number of his idiosyncratic whose jobs are delineated at full length. e reason is not traits as a clerk who no longer holds a government clerk- that the stories are primarily concerned with oce poli- ship. So self-conscious is he about his past status, for ex- tics, but rather that they focus more on life than work̶ ample, that he responds to any requests with “I would that they describe life as reective of work by illuminat- prefer not to.” With his career in mind, we are now able ing the personal as professional. is point of view allows to detect an ironic tone in this formulaic utterance. “In- showing further parallels between “The Man of the deed,” John says, “the word prefer itself evokes rich asso- Crowd” and “Bartleby.” ciations with the culture of public office from which Bartleby had been evicted. Preferment referred to holding public oce and preferring charges to drafting a formal Public to Private: A Downward Career Move indictment against a public ocer who failed to uphold Since the Melville Revival in the 1920s, “Bartleby” has his trust” (634). If Bartleby’s negative preference for his always aroused attention of numerous scholars from a present situation reveals his class consciousness fostered multitude of dierent disciplines. In e Silence of Bartle- in the public-oce culture, he is not so much a scrivener

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as a former public ocer. is perspective is of impor- him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him tance in recognizing how powerfully the oce can aect from the premises” (30). Bartleby’s behavior shows no his life. legible sign. In the lawyer’s eyes, in other words, he may Of equal importance is that Bartleby was compelled to appear as an illegible document. It is then natural to make a career move from public to private oce̶oce wonder if the same perception is applicable to the man engaged in “a snug business among rich men’s bonds and of the crowd. When the man comes into sight through mortgages and title-deeds” (20). No sooner had he, as an the window, he absorbs the narrator’s entire attention: ex-ocer, acquired an intuitive grasp of how the oce operated than he refused to perform his duties. What is As I endeavored, during the brief minute of my more, he refused to provide any concrete reason for his original survey, to form some analysis of the refusal; on the contrary, he asked: “You do not see the meaning conveyed, there arose confusedly and reason for yourself?” (45) Such a negative question can paradoxically within my mind, the ideas of vast be seen as a variation of his negative preference: he pre- mental power, of caution, of penuriousness, of ferred not to stand on a par with anyone in the private avarice, of coolness, of malice, of blood-thirsti- oce and even preferred not to live a second life than to ness, of triumph, of merriment, of excessive ter- serve in the oce. It can be said in this context that his ror, of intense̶of extreme despair. I felt singu- downfall originated in the spoils/patronage system asso- larly aroused, startled, fascinated. “How wild a ciated with the administration of Andrew Jackson, who history,” I said to myself, “is written within that replaced several hundreds of postmasters and other of- bosom!” (158) ceholders with his Democrats. “So notorious were the partisan dismissals,” John writes in his book subtitled e Bartleby’s narrator cannot see anything in him̶“the American Postal System from Franklin to Morse, “that the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his oceholders’ plight even found its way into imaginative manner”̶and Poe’s narrator cannot see “the meaning ction” (29). Perhaps the best-known among those c- conveyed,” which encompasses quite a wide range of tional oceholders is Bartleby, and his sudden dismissal “ideas.” As we know, although the desire for legibility from the previous oce suggests an underlying cause of grows much stronger within him when he confronts the his xation on the present oce. As early as his third day man’s illegibility, the story leaves mysterious how wild a at work, Bartleby gives voice to his negative preference. history is inscribed within the gure. Now that we have While turning his working space into a semiprivate discovered Poe’s special interest in clerks to stand in an space, he turns himself into an oce dweller preferring intertextual relationship to Melville’s, however, it is cer- even not to run an errand to the local post oce: “He si- tainly possible to hypothesize about what this seemingly lently retired into his hermitage” whenever asked to “step clueless character is. Given that he is highly conspicuous round to the Post Oce” (51). As the story evolves, he among the crowd of those with dierent jobs, it can be locks his lawyer-employer out and forces him to relocate assumed that the titular man is not in work̶albeit not his oce. Consequently, he occupies the entire oce, al- in the sense of being a âneur as a man of leisure̶but beit just temporarily, and this uncommon situation indi- an ex-worker or, to be more specic, an ex-government cates that the ex-oceholder becomes an oceholder in worker. With this assumption in mind, the section that the literal sense. follows offers further exploration of the man of the Here we see an unexpected side of Bartleby. Forcefully crowd as a literary cousin of Bartleby. removed from the Post Oce, he seems to have resolved never to be removed again. As a Master in Chancery, the Appearance and Performance: A Surmise narrator specializes in reading as well as writing legal about a Bartleby documents, but ironically or not, he fails to read his em- ployee’s mind: “Had there been the least uneasiness, an- In order to approach the man of the crowd as a Bartle- ger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other by, we must first conjure an image of Bartleby. This words, had there been anything ordinarily human about youngster with an expressionless face answered a

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help-wanted ad. According to the narrator, his initial ap- whom they were sent, and check if they contain valuable pearance at the oce door was “pallidly neat, pitiably re- enclosures. “Sometimes from out the folded paper the spectable, incurably forlorn” (21). e description is pri- pale clerk takes a ring,” and the reader may well imagine marily characterized by his conicting images̶pallid yet him holding a letter opener, cutting open an envelope, neat, pitiable yet respectable. Besides, the narrator adds and taking out a ring̶possibly a diamond one. ese later, “though so thin and pale, he never complained of are the things that cast new light on the man of the ill health” (25). Interestingly enough, similar characteris- crowd. “[T]hrough a rent in a closely-buttoned and evi- tics are to be found in the man of the crowd: “He was dently second-handed roquelaire which enveloped him,” short in stature, very thin, and apparently very feeble. the narrator says, “I caught a glimpse both of a diamond His clothes, generally, were lthy and ragged; but as he and of a dagger” (159). is minute observation unveils came, now and then, within the strong glare of a lamp, I that the man appears illegible not only because he rep- perceived that his linen, although dirty, was of beautiful resents the anonymous crowd, but especially because his texture” (159). at is to say, he looks rather frail but is tightly-buttoned clothing envelops his belongings allu- actually strong enough to walk overnight through the sive to his history. If the diamond and the dagger corre- busy city streets; he looks poorly dressed but is actually spond to the ring and the opener in “Bartleby,” those de- careful enough in his choice of clothing material. In this vices may bespeak their owner’s secret career; that is, the manner, his looks betray the conflicting aspects of his man can be surmised to have served the Dead Letter Of- personality. Such two-sidedness elicits the assumption ce, which was rst established in 1784 and then housed that the man is an ex-subordinate clerk like Bartleby̶ in 1829 by the General Post Oce in London. clerk who used to occupy a low rank within the govern- Having ventured this surmise, the focus can be shifted ment hierarchy and a high status within a larger soci- from the man’s appearance to his performance̶perfor- ety̶although he may then be a retired, not dismissed, mance from which to interpret his past. When he is one, considering that he looks sixty-ve to seventy years among “the host of buyers and sellers,” for example, he old. behaves as follows: “He entered shop after shop, priced Another clue becomes available by making an even nothing, spoke no word, and looked at all objects with a more specic assumption in relation to Bartleby. In the wild and vacant stare” (160). Such behavior is admittedly nal paragraph of “Bartleby,” the narrator imagines how typical of the flâneur. In Benjamin’s Marxist view, the work is to be done in the Dead Letter Oce in Wash- âneur is a victim of the city as the locus of a capitalist ington: society dominated by consumerism: “ e intoxication to which the flâneur surrenders is the intoxication of the Conceive a man by nature and misfortune prone commodity around which surges the stream of custom- to a pallid hopelessness, can any business seem ers” (55). It is, however, arguable if the man is really in- more tted to heighten it than that of continual- toxicated by, so to speak, commodity fetishism. Note ly handling these dead letters and assorting them that his stare is “vacant” and is focused on “objects.” It is for the ames? For by the cart-load they are an- unlikely, given such an attitude of disinterest toward nually burned. Sometimes from out the folded commercial products, that he belongs to market partici- paper the pale clerk takes a ring:̶the finger it pants. Rather, given his extraordinary interest in such was meant for, perhaps, moulders in the grave; a public areas as “the great thoroughfare” (159) and “a bank-note sent in swiftest charity:̶he whom it large and busy bazaar” (160), it is not necessarily unrea- would relieve, nor eats nor hungers any more; sonable to assume that he used to handle a wide diversity pardon for those who died despairing; hope for of items for public purposes. One of the likeliest places those who died unhoping; good tidings for those for him to have worked in is the Dead Letter Oce in who died stied by unrelieved calamities. (65) London. ere was no other oce in which employees were allowed to open the Royal Mail. An 1865 book on e rst and foremost duties in the dead letter oce are city and country life in Britain refers to this oce that to open undeliverable mail, learn to whom or from treats a great number of articles as well as letters:

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Of the miscellaneous articles found in these let- As argued below, this consideration is justied not only ters, there is a very curious assortment. e ladies by his behavior, but also by the narrator’s desire to read appear to nd the Post-oce a vast convenience, someone like a book. Where does this desire stem from? by the number of fancy articles of female gear e question is worth posing to gain an insight into the found in them. Lace, ribands, handkerchiefs, narrator as well as the narrated, namely into their simi- cus, muettees, gloves, fringe̶a range of arti- larity mentioned previously. cles, in short, is discovered in them sucient to set up a dozen pedlars’ boxes for Autolycus. Little Letter Detective: A Job as an Epistolary presents of jewellery are also very commonly to Voyeur be found: rings, brooches, gold pins, and the like. These articles are sold to some jeweller, In the narrator’s eyes, the old man refuses to be alone. whilst the gloves and handkerchiefs, and other In the reader’s eyes, however, this is also the case with the articles tted for the young bucks of the oce, narrator, in the sense of their togetherness that presents are put up to auction and bought among them- itself as the story unravels: “If the initial movement of selves. ese dead letters are the residuum, if we the narrative proceeds from identity to dierence, from may so term it, of all the oces in England, as, the sameness of ‘masses’ to ‘the absolute idiosyncrasy’ of after remaining in the local posts for a given one individual, this movement becomes problematized time, they are transferred to the central office. in the second part of the story, in which the distinction (Wynter 15-16) between pursuer and pursued is gradually obliterated” (Shiloh 19). One sign of this obliteration is the frequent e Dead Letter Oce (later renamed the National Re- appearance of the word “we.” e second half of the nar- turn Center and, in 1992, relocated to Belfast) was “the rative culminates “when we had once again reached that central office,” to which “miscellaneous articles” were most thronged mart of the populous town, the street of brought from “all the offices in England.” One may the D̶̶ Hotel” (161). ere is no ne distinction be- imagine such a workplace as a marketplace in the sense tween them anymore: the pursuer gives no description of that it was where many different articles, from female how the pursued looks in their face-to-face confronta- clothes to jewelry presents, were regularly sold and auc- tion; nor does the former receive the attention of the lat- tioned. Dead letter clerks were thus provided with access ter even in this confrontation̶“He noticed me not, but to those articles, including valuables like the old man’s resumed his solemn walk” (162). Now they are hardly diamond. individuals. As has been pointed out, they are both part e General Post Oce in London is, according to a of the crowd.2 Nonetheless, their intimate connection al- history book published three years before “ e Man of lows further analysis. the Crowd,” divided into several oces, including “the As we have seen, the old man appears to have worked Dead Letter Oce, in which there are an inspector, an as- in the Dead Letter Oce. What, then, about the narra- sistant, and seven clerks” (Allen 200). Supposing that tor? Very little is known about him, but it is certain that Poe’s old man was once among those office workers̶ he is obsessed with reading others like books. Gazing at those supposed to be well acquainted with city address- the gas-lit street as “the world of light,” he scrutinizes the es̶it comes as no surprise that he is quite familiar with different localities of the city, from “the heart of the 2 For instance, one critic observes that “the anonymous narra- mighty London” to “the most noisome quarter of Lon- tor’s baed obsession with someone’s idiosyncratic individuali- don” (161). Exhausted by his citywide pursuit of the ty partially exposes his fear that his pose of genteel belonging lacks a self” (Leverenz 468). The same fear holds true for the wanderer, the narrator stands face to face with him, yet unnamed narrator of “Bartleby,” for “both stories ultimately ex- he learns nothing of this stranger. It is at this point that posed the problems in the observer’s attempt̶and by exten- the man is declared to be something that does not permit sion, that of all readers of city life and literature̶to retain a de- itself to be read. No longer is he totally illegible, howev- tached rational stance, or to come to any satisfactory resolution” er, as long as he can be considered an ex-dead letter clerk. (Kasson 82).

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mob: “I could frequently read, even in that brief interval dresses what is required of such an idiosyncratic profes- of a glance, the history of long years” (158). e street sion: “ ey said when I applied for this job that probably presents itself as a world of letters in the literal sense of the most important trait they were looking for was the being thickly populated with those who are to be read. ability to be obsessive about details” (15). Poe’s narrator In light of his categorial reading of what they are, he is of possesses this very trait that manifests itself when he the rm opinion that one’s selfhood is inseparable from grows more and more “obsessive about details” by de- one’s livelihood in the city as one of the world’s great scribing people as legible̶which is to say that his gaze is emporia. As shown also in the full title, “Bartleby, the like that of “an epistolary voyeur.” Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street,” the personal is, or at Poe has long been acknowledged as one of the pio- least was, professional. If the same holds true for the nar- neers of the detective genre. “ e Man of the Crowd” is rator of “ e Man of the Crowd,” then his personal ob- widely accepted as “an embryo of a detective story” session can be said to reect an aspect of his profession. (Brand 79). Or, in the oft-quoted words of Benjamin, it It is in this context that his reading overlaps with that of is “something like an X-ray of a detective story. It does an American dead letter clerk who belongs to some later away with all the drapery that a crime represents” (27). generation of Bartleby: Given the narrator’s attention like an epistolary voyeur’s and his subject’s action like an ex-dead letter clerk’s, this Intellectually, my job implicates all my puz- semi-detective story can be more open to interpretation. zle-solving abilities, challenging me to gure out Indeed, although it features neither a detective nor a from the often-scant clues in a letter, the identity clerk, it is susceptible to arguments from their stand- of either the sender or intended recipient. Social- points. One must add, however, that the author seems to ly, I am plunged vicariously into some of the have anticipated any critical reading to result in failure. most complicated and sensitive situations in e story nishes with the narrator thinking to himself: which human beings can become involved, as re- “ e worst heart of the world is a grosser book than the vealed in the pages that my job as an epistolary ‘Hortulus Animae,’ and perhaps it is but one of the great voyeur requires me to read. (LaCheen 14) mercies of God that ‘es lässt sich nicht lesen’” (162). God’s mercy nds expression in one’s illegibility. is conclu- e passage serves to reemphasize that among the prima- sion is in no way typically Poesque̶albeit “Poe dis- ry jobs of dead letter clerks is to discover “the identity of agreed with Coleridge on imagination and fancy and in- either the sender or intended recipient.” As those with sisted that no artist really creates in the sense that God “puzzle-solving abilities,” which come into full play when creates” (Mabbott xiii)̶but it is his innermost intention they imagine themselves in “some of the most complicat- to mystify his story through reference to Him as the Un- ed and sensitive situations,” they attempt to perform the knowable. When the story comes to an unusual close, it task of reading not only what is written but also who reveals itself as an ultimate mystery, namely “it does not writes or who is written, not only “the pages” but also “ “human beings.” In this light, dead letter clerks deserve Americans, and recognizes its staff members as detec- tive-clerks”: the name of letter detectives in that they are required to

exercise their powers of deduction to solve the mysteries In an era when money and valuables routinely traveled 3 of undeliverable mail. Notably, the clerk cited above ad- by mail, they imagined a kind of federal Aladdin’s cave filled with cash, jewelry, banknotes, wills, deeds, and 3 On January 27th, 2003, for example, British national news- other treasures gleaned from undeliverable letters. e paper, The Guardian, published “People Send the Funniest oce was presided over by a highly professional sta Things,” an article on the National Return Center in Belfast. that unusually included many clergymen as well as e reporter, Natasha Mann, closes its opening paragraph by re- women because both groups were considered more ferring to the three hundred sorters as “letter detectives.” It is to honest and diligent than the average man. ese skilled be noted in this connection that Winifred Gallagher, the author detective-clerks did not read the letters but strove ear- of How the Post Oce Created America: A History, remarks how nestly to get their contents, which amounted to mil- the Dead Letter Office fascinated mid-nineteenth-century lions of dollars per year, to the rightful recipients. (154)

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permit itself to be read.” An attempt that has been made Here the seal was large and black, with the D̶̶ ci- in the present study is not so much to demystify the sto- pher; there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of ry, but rather to diversify its interpretability by pursuing the S̶̶ family. Here, the address, to the Minister, was its specic relationship to “Bartleby.” Melville’s New York diminutive and feminine; there the superscription, to a story was created in an age when the oce was deemed certain royal personage, was markedly bold and decided; an unfit subject for literature, and Poe’s London story the size alone formed a point of correspondence. But, was conceivably an earlier story relevant to the creation then, the radicalness of these dierences, which was ex- of Bartleby̶Bartleby not at the law office but at the cessive; the dirt; the soiled and torn condition of the pa- Post Oce. per, so inconsistent with the true methodical habits of D̶̶ . . . . (307) Poe’s Bartlebys: A Backward Extension After close examination of the half-torn letter, Dupin In his abovementioned essay that calls for an in-depth learns that it is wrongly sealed and intentionally misad- look at modern office-worker protagonists, Saval re- dressed. His obsession about its details is that of an epis- groups them as Bartlebys, but he directs no attention to tolary voyeur being well aware of how a letter reveals its Bartleby’s supposed clerkship in the Post Office. The writer: he makes sense of how the paper reveals the Min- scrivener’s past job plays an important part in contextu- ister. Dupin’s faculty of observation marks him as a de- alizing his forerunners as well as followers. Its American tective; he is like a dead letter clerk in that he unlocks roots can be traced back to the times of Benjamin Frank- the mystery of the purloined letter in the oce.4 lin. rough his long-running career, he made an enor- “ e Purloined Letter” was an elaborate extension of mous contribution to the postal service that evolved to “ e Man of the Crowd.” is sense of extension can be become the modern postal system. In the mid-eighteenth made not only forward but also backward, by rediscover- century, for instance, “Franklin drew up typically de- ing Poe’s main characters as transatlantic and prototypic tailed procedures for running the service more eciently, gures of Bartleby.5 In the words of Jorge Luis Borges̶ established the rst home-delivery system and dead-letter 4 e argument here is relevant to the Derridean analyses by office, and took frequent inspection tours” (Isaacson Sunka Simon and by Andrew Wilson. e former argues: “ e 157). Before long, in 1775, he assumed oce as the rst ‘dead letter’ develops its own history and narrative precisely be- Postmaster General. It was in less than a century that cause it is announced but withheld. As a constant source of ag- Melville created a story about an employee said to work gravation and suspicion, it upsets the epistolary harmony be- in the Dead Letter Oce, and Poe’s work can be reex- tween sender and addressee and therefore guarantees the survival of the correspondence. is letter establishes a postal system of amined in relation to this historical context. another order by rewriting Poe’s story against Lacan’s reading” In retrospect, “The Man of the Crowd,” which em- (116). e latter is also skeptical of Lacan’s insistence that the braces a clerk’s as well as a detective’s perspective, preg- undelivered letter never fails to reach its destination: “ ere is ured the story to be published four years later, in 1844. always some element of the letter̶and writing̶that fails to e year saw the publication of “ e Purloined Letter,” complete the journey, an element that essentially remains in the dead-letter oce. is remainder always exceeds the frames of the last (and possibly best) story in his trilogy featuring reference used to guide meaning to a destination” (121-22). C. Auguste Dupin. This seminal story, set in Paris, is 5 This direction of extension is partly inspired by what Wai characterized not only by the amateur detective but also Chee Dimock aims to demonstrate in rough Other Continents: by the government oceholders, the Prefect G̶̶ and American Literature across Deep Time: the Minister D̶̶. According to the Prefect, the Minis- Literature is the home of nonstandard space and time. ter has stolen the letter in question from an unnamed Against the official borders of the nation and against lady of highest status in order to blackmail her. e mys- the xed intervals of the clock, what ourishes here is tery of its concealment in his hotel office is eventually irregular duration and extension, some extending for thousands of years or thousands of miles, each occa- solved by Dupin: sioned by a dierent tie and varying with that tie, and each loosening up the chronology and geography of the nation. (4)

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Argentine author and translator of “Bartleby”̶“ e fact John, Richard R. “ e Lost World of Bartleby, the Ex-Oce- is that each writer creates his precursors. His work modi- holder: Variations on a Venerable Literary Form.” e New es our conception of the past, as it will modify our fu- England Quarterly 70.4 (1997): 631-41. Print. ─. Spreading the News: The American Postal System from ture” (243). Melville’s work is surely no exception. As Franklin to Morse. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1998. noted by the narrator, Bartleby seems all alone, but is he Print. really alone like an outcast̶“A bit of wreck in the mid Kasson, John F. Rudeness and Civility: Manners in Nine- Atlantic”? Granted, he connes himself to his own her- teenth-Century Urban America. New York: Hill and Wang, mitage when in the oce, but he is never alone in the 1990. Print. literature of the office, wherein his kinsmen have been LaCheen, Steve. “Dead Letter.” The Philadelphia Lawyer 78.1 (2015): 14-15. Print. created since even before he was created. A key to his lib- Leverenz, David. “Male Hybrids in Classic American Fiction.” eration from the Bartleby Industry will be found when e Oxford History of the Novel in English. Vol.5: e Amer- he is diversified into those like dead letter clerks̶like ican Novel to 1870. Ed. J. Gerald Kennedy and Leland S. Poe’s Bartlebys. Person. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2014. 466-82. Print. Mabbott, T. O. Introduction. Poe, Selected v-xiv. Acknowledgments Mann, Natasha. “People Send the Funniest ings.” e Guard- e present study is supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant ian. Guardian and News Media, 27 Jan. 2003. Web. 31 Number JP16K02496. Aug. 2016. Marcus, Mordecai. “Melville’s ‘Bartleby’ as Psychological Dou- ble.” College English 23.5 (1962): 365-68. Print. Works Cited McCall, Dan. e Silence of Bartleby. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1989. Allen, omas. e History and Antiquities of London, Westmin- Print. ster, Southwark, and Parts Adjacent. Vol. V. London: Melville, Herman. “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall- George Virtue, 1837. Print. Street.” 1853. e Complete Shorter Fiction. London: Ev- Benjamin, Walter. Charles Baudelaire: A Lyric Poet in the Era of eryman’s Library, 1997. 18-51. Print. High Capitalism. Trans. Harry Zohn. London: Verso, 1983. Poe, Edgar Allan. “ e Man of the Crowd.” Poe, Selected 154- Print. 62. Borges, Jorge Luis. “Kafka and His Precursors.” Borges, a Reader: ─. “ e Purloined Letter.” Poe, Selected 293-307. A Selection from the Writings of Jorge Luis Borges. Ed. Emir ─. e Selected Poetry and Prose of Edgar Allan Poe. Ed. T. Rodriguez, Monegal Reid, and Alastair Reid. New York: E. O. Mabbott. New York: Modern Library, 1951. Print. P. Dutton, 1981. 242-46. Print. Saval, Nikil. “Bartlebys All!” Dissent 61.4 (2014): 22-26. Print. Brand, Dana. The Spectator in the City in Nineteenth-Century ─. Cubed: A Secret History of the Workplace. 2014. New American Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991. York: Anchor, 2015. Print. Print. Shiloh, Ilana. e Double, the Labyrinth, and the Locked Room: Dimock, Wai Chee. rough Other Continents: American Litera- Metaphors of Paradox in Crime Fiction and Film. New ture across Deep Time. 2006. Princeton: Princeton UP, York: Peter Lang, 2011. Print. 2008. Print. Simon, Sunka. Mail-Orders: e Fiction of Letters in Postmodern Ford, Richard. Introduction. Blue Collar, White Collar, No Col- Culture. Albany: State U of New York P, 2002. Print. lar: Stories of Work. By Ford. New York: Harper Perennial, Wilbur, Richard. “ e House of Poe.” 1959. Ed. Harold Bloom. 2011. vii-xiv. Print. Edgar Allan Poe: Modern Critical Views. New York: Chel- Gallagher, Winifred. How the Post Oce Created America: A His- sea House, 1985. 51-70. Print. tory. New York: Penguin, 2016. Print. Wilson, Andrew P. Transfigured: A Derridean Rereading of the Isaacson, Walter. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life. New Markan Transguration. New York: T & T International, York: Simon and Schuster, 2004. Print. 2007. Print. Jahshan, Paul. “From Man of the Crowd to Cybernaut: Edgar Wynter, Andrew. Our Social Bees; or, Pictures of Town and Coun- Allan Poe’s Transatlantic Journey̶and Back.” European try Life, and Other Papers. London: Robert Hardwicke, Journal of American Studies 3.3 (2008): 1-12. Web. 13 1865. Print. Sept. 2018.

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