Bartleby the Scrivener

During the first week of the Intro to the English Major class, we read Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville. I really enjoyed this piece, although I also found it incredibly frustrating. The narrator of the story is a lawyer who employs Bartleby as a scrivener at his firm, someone who will copy the lawyer's important documents. The whole time Bartleby works at the firm, however, he outright refuses to do anything other than copy; soon, he even refuses to do that.

Bartleby's "catch phrase" in the story is "I would prefer not to." I love this statement that he repeats several times, but it is also really irritating. I feel this way because if I were Bartleby, I would never say no to my boss, and I would never keep an employee like Bartleby if I were the lawyer. Their whole passive aggressive struggle throughout the story is quite amusing until the end, when the scrivener dies in prison. The conclusion gives the story a darker feeling instead of the light silliness it maintained while watching Bartleby and his boss go back and forth.

Overall, I very much enjoyed this story. A friend also told me that she has a t-shirt with Bartleby's line on it, "I would prefer not to." I plan on getting one immediately. :)