The narrator of "Bartleby"

[alice wellintown]

> the patriarchal gaze of the employer shows us Bartleby's co-workers
> only as subservient and of incomplete competence.

We are limited to his unreliable narrative, but this is, of course,
the brilliance of the tale, for it is driven by irony that would not
work without a limited and unrelaible, dramatized yet un-named,
solicitor's defence/confession.

The workers are limited by the scope of the narrator, by his limited
view of their humanity. His gaze (Lacan) of the employers is but a
reflection of his anxiety in exposing himself. It is therefore fitting
that he begin with Turkey, a man his own age, a man who is quite
industrious, in the Franklin sense,  and who, before we meet the queer
scrivener who prefers not to vacate the wall street office, is asked
to go but will not go.