Os efeitos da depressão em Bartleby, the Scrivener, de Herman Melville

Abstract

This work aims to investigate the aspects of depression present in the famous short story Bartleby, the Scrivener (1853) by American writer Herman Melville. The construction of the protagonist and his enigmatic demeanor offers the reader the possibility of interpreting him from various perspectives, bringing him into contemporary relevance, considering that the narrative addresses issues such as human alienation and the development of mental disorders caused by the work structures of the capitalist system. Bartleby is depicted as an individual who exhibits symptoms of a melancholy that profoundly affects his being. Thus, to understand the figure of the scrivener from the perspective of melancholy, we draw on theoretical considerations in the literary, scientific, and philosophical fields regarding depression, grounded in Andrew Solomon's The Noonday Demon, Byung-Chul Han's The Burnout Society, Sigmund Freud's essays Mourning and Melancholia and Civilization and Its Discontents, as well as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Furthermore, the analysis of the story is also based on critical positions regarding Melville’s work found in the essays Ah, Humanity... by Xerxenesky, and The Vast Horizon, the Wall Ahead by Ghirardi, as they seek to promote reflection on how the psychological pathology affects the protagonist, allowing for a reinterpretation of the story adapted to contemporary society.