“I would prefer not to,” is a phrase made famous from Herman Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener. This story is told from an anonymous lawyer’s perspective about the addition of Bartleby to his firm as a scrivener, and Bartleby’s peculiar attitude and mannerisms at the workplace. Throughout the short story, the lawyer continues to ask Bartleby to do jobs for him and he replies with, “I would prefer not to.” It is later found out that on the weekend, the lawyer made a stop by his office and happened to find that Bartleby had been living in the office the whole time. The lawyer asked him to leave, to which he replied, “I would prefer not to;” so, the lawyer changed the location of his office to remove himself from Bartleby. The new owner contacts
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One of the only pieces offered is his past career at the Dead Letter Office in Washington. From this, one can assume that the significance of Bartleby working at the Dead Letter Office is because he is considered a “dead letter” as a person due to his lack of ambition or drive to accomplish anything in general, which is contradicting the American work ethic; nonetheless, Giles, perceives Bartleby as having the strongest free will of all of the men mentioned in the short story because, “He does not do anything unless he truly wants to” because participating in something that one does not feel strongly about is self-destructive (Giles 80). At work, Bartleby wants to busy himself with writing, not copying. His attitude then deems anything other than writing as not worth his time. To his coworkers, Bartleby is seen as lazy and difficult to work with because of what they perceive as his lack of motivation. “’Nippers,’ said [the narrator], ‘what do you think of it?’ ‘I think I should kick him out of the office.’” (Melville 1491). Due to Bartleby’s passive resistance, he is seen as an outcast or “luny” as Ginger Nut later states because he does not believe in participating in anything that he does not feel is
One of the only pieces offered is his past career at the Dead Letter Office in Washington. From this, one can assume that the significance of Bartleby working at the Dead Letter Office is because he is considered a “dead letter” as a person due to his lack of ambition or drive to accomplish anything in general, which is contradicting the American work ethic; nonetheless, Giles, perceives Bartleby as having the strongest free will of all of the men mentioned in the short story because, “He does not do anything unless he truly wants to” because participating in something that one does not feel strongly about is self-destructive (Giles 80). At work, Bartleby wants to busy himself with writing, not copying. His attitude then deems anything other than writing as not worth his time. To his coworkers, Bartleby is seen as lazy and difficult to work with because of what they perceive as his lack of motivation. “’Nippers,’ said [the narrator], ‘what do you think of it?’ ‘I think I should kick him out of the office.’” (Melville 1491). Due to Bartleby’s passive resistance, he is seen as an outcast or “luny” as Ginger Nut later states because he does not believe in participating in anything that he does not feel is