Why are the characters Nippers and Turkey important?

The characters, Nippers and Turkey play an important role in Bartleby, The Scrivener, because the play a comparison role in the story.  As the story opens, the lawyer begins to give descriptions of the workers he employ; he tells us that each of the workers has a nickname that corresponds to their appearance and personality.  Turkey was short, pursy and close to age sixty; he also wore his clothes loosely and they looked oily and smelled of eating-houses.  Nippers was whiskered, sallow and about twenty five years old; he always dressed in gentlemanly sort of way.  The lawyer also gave the us insight into the work that each do; before mid-day Turkey was the quickest steadiest creature in the office but after mid-day his work began to decline Nippers exactly opposite, as in he did good work after mid-day.  As the lawyer put it, "When Nippers' was on Turkey's was off; and vice versa.  These descriptions of Nippers and Turkey were the base of the importance that each of them served in the story.

When we are introduced to Bartleby, he is described as pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, and incurably forlorn.  His work was also described as extraordinary.  Bartleby's work never stopped, not for sleep nor for nourishment.  While Bartleby would work Nippers and Turkey would have another of the employees, Ginger Nut, get them food.  These things put into play exactly what type of person Bartleby was, which was pretty much everything that Nippers and Turkey were not.

The presence of Nippers and Turkey of aid the plot of the story. (Being that there are so many interpretations of the story the plot can vary from reader to reader.)  The names Nippers and Turkey are food references coincidentally one of the major factors of Bartleby's death was the fact that he did not eat.  Aside from the food references the other characters in the story begin to act Bartleby-like in a sense.  The recurring "prefer", which was associated with every statement made by Bartleby in the story began to slip out of the mouths of Nippers and Turkey as well.  Without the characters of Nippers and Turkey the story would be without.  Everything that Bartleby did would not have had the same response if the presence of other workers were not there; so Nippers and Turkey are just as important to the overall story as is Bartleby.