bartleby and the problem of 'doing good'

Most popular novels, especially those of pre-Modernism, function karmaically; if a certain character is particularly nasty, they will most likely either be cast as the vilan, or meet a spiraling, doom-ridden ending. However, in Bartleby, our main protagonist is plagued from the start with malfortune, in the form of the omniprescent, chillingly apathetic Bartleby. The narrator and protagonist is only fleetingly described as being a "rather elderly man" and one who "has been filled with a profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best." With this introduction to the story, we are set up, as readers, to expect the traditional lazy man's tale; character is shown the misgivings of his lazy lifestyle, changes, grows, etc. However, Melville takes us on a sharply different route; instead of writing a story about the depths and trials of the narrator's life, he has the narrator reflect outwards, onto the character of Bartleby. Here is presented the main conflict of the story; the difference between doing good and being good. Our narrator, at least at the beginning, is convinced that Bartleby is a soul worth saving, and that by allowing Bartleby to continue to work, our narrator will, as he says " prove a sweet morsel for [his] conscience." Returning to the karmaic principles I mentioned before, the reader might expect that either Bartleby will concede and either leave or quit his odd defiance, or the narrator will crack, flying into a rampage or reverting into himself. However, the two of them continue on in an odd sort of dance, neither of them backing down from their stances, and thus neither of them earning higher moral standing. This is where the idea of "being good" comes into play; throughout the novel, the narrator is portrayed as he who is doing good, as he is allowing Bartleby to remain in his office and, quite frankly, being too polite about it. However, is he, innately, good because of this? Or is it Bartleby, who remains static and completely within himself? This is an interesting narrative tactic; because Bartleby says almost nothing, the reader must base all assumptions on what is told or described of him. With our narrator, what we know of him is based primarily on his own thoughts about himself, and whether or not he is making the right choice. Therefore, Melville has set up two opposites; one who overshares, and one who doesn't relate to the external world at all. It is almost impossible for the narrator to "do good" for Bartleby, when Bartleby is so closed off to all others that neither we, nor the narrator, can access his value code to know how to do good for him. This is why the story does not follow the traditional, cause and effect tradition of others; the two main characters are locked in a stalemate, making it impossible for the story to unravel.