Bartleby The Scrivener Essay

Herman Melville’s short story, “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street,” describes an unnamed lawyer’s encounter with a “motionless, young man” (168) named Bartleby. At the story’s beginning, the lawyer offers a scrivener job at his law firm, which Bartleby takes. Initially, Bartleby does his job exceptionally well, but when asked to do other, simple tasks, he replies with the mantra, “I would prefer not to.” Bartleby persistently rejects several of his boss’s orders, which eventually leads to Bartleby’s refusal to perform his original job (copying documents). The narrator moves away from his office to avoid Bartleby and his oddities, but Bartleby haunts the law firm and assumes a stubborn, inactive state in which he refuses to move out. Bartleby’s attitude exhibits passive resistance, which causes the people around Bartleby, especially the narrator, to …show more content…
The narrator notes Bartleby as “the strangest [scrivener] I ever saw or heard of” (164), which indicates that the two hold different values in life. The narrator considers himself an “eminently safe man” (164) and reveals that he has taken the “easiest” (164) road in life in order to earn his well-paying job as a lawyer. Bartleby, on the other hand, quickly reveals his dissimilar nature as he repeats the phrase, “I would prefer not to” (169) whenever someone challenges his free will. This surprises the lawyer because he expects compliance from Bartleby; people normally follow sources of authority, even if they do not wish to, but Bartleby does not let anyone break his free will. Unlike the narrator, Bartleby does not want the “easiest” way of life, but rather one in which he can do what he wants. Humanity often exhibits the same behavior as the lawyer; people look for an “easy” and “safe” approach to life, but in order to do so, they must resort to becoming someone who can never be