SOURCE: "The Literary Work: Herman Melville's 'Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street'," in Psychoanalysis and Literature: An Introduction, Nelson-Hall, 1981, pp. 85-96.

Mollinger is an English scholar with extensive training in psychoanalysis. In the following excerpt, Mollinger considers "Bartleby" to be a portrayal of basic human, psychological needs, focusing especially on Melville's portrayal of oral fixations.

In Melville's "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street" Bartleby's lack of motivation to work, his employer's motivation for putting up with him, the imagery, and even the actual subject of the story have yet to be fully clarified. The characters have been seen either as doubles of each other or as opposites, while the theme has been looked at from a social perspective or related to the biography of the author. A study of the story's imagery clarifies both the personalities of the characters and the theme. The characters'...