Herman Melville wrote about Bartleby in Bartleby the Scrivener and The Dead Letter Office. The Dead Letter Office is a post office in Washington DC where letters end up at a dead end because they failed to reach the destinations they were sent to. So whoever they were sent never received them. Bartleby's job was to take those letters and then burn them. In Bartleby the Scrivener, Bartleby no longer works at the Dead Letter Office; now he works for a lawyer. "Dead Letters And Dead Men: Narrative Purpose In 'Bartleby'" written by Thomas R. Mitchell and "Melville's Bartleby, The Scrivener" by Todd Giles are both critical articles in which the authors point out different meanings from "Bartleby the Scrivener" relating to Bartleby to a Dead Letter There is great significance in the story between Bartleby and the Dead Letter Office because it plays an important role in Bartleby's character, such as not being the average, lost, antisocial worker, comparing Bartleby to a Dead Letter. One example where dead letter office work plays a role in Bartleby's character is that Bartleby is not the average office worker. He's the weird guy who no one likes does his job and spends hours sitting and staring. When asked to do something, he responds with "I'd rather not." . Again, “Bartleby is improper, without property, without possession, but at the same time he is in full control of his own possession” (Giles). He tends to keep to himself instead of letting others know more about him. Nothing is known about Bartleby, except what can be seen and grasped; like his name, or that he never leaves the office. In Bartle... in the center of the paper... d, and left as is. No one bothered to spend their time trying to open it and read its story, "Bartleby, like the rumors about the Dead Letter Office, is that which never arrives in any form of quantifiable totality" (Giles). Exactly how the letters are left after arriving at the Dead Letter Office is how Bartleby had planned to stay after leaving the Dead Letter Office. Until the narrator became fond of Bartleby without realizing it; causing the narrator not to want to leave Bartleby and for Bartleby not to leave the world as he did. Works Cited Mitchell, Thomas R. "Dead Letters And Dead Men: Narrative Purpose In `Bartleby.." Studies In Short Fiction 27.3 (1990) : 329. Literary Reference Center. Network. November 17, 2013. Giles, Todd. "Melville's 'Bartleby, the Scribe'." Explicator 65.2 (2007): 88-91. MLA international bibliography. Network. November 8. 2013.