The behavior of the Lawyer (the narrator of "Bartleby the Scrivener") has been the focus of much critical discussion about the story. At first, the Lawyer introduces Bartleby as a particularly interesting "specimen" from his collection of stories about weird scriveners. This seems to be a rather patronizing attitude, as if Bartleby were no more than a rare insect or stamp. As the story progresses, the Lawyer seems to have an increasing amount of sympathy …showed first 75 words of 481 total…

…showed last 75 words of 481 total…along: he has failed to understand Bartleby. "Can't you see the reason for yourself?" Bartleby responds when the Lawyer asks him why he prefers not to do anything. The Lawyer can't, and this is why he fails to help Bartleby—not from his own selfishness (though that's part of it), but from an inability to understand Bartleby's behavior, which, Melville seems to argue, may be the direct result of the materialism that the Lawyer champions.