Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville
4. How does Bartleby's "I would prefer not to" affect the routine of the lawyer and his employees?
This short story was long and took time to get through. I liked it though. I felt like it was easier than others and was kept interesting without a complicated plot line. Bartleby is an odd character to say the least. His "I would prefer not to" statements affected everyone around him. If it was before noon, Nipper would want to kill him and Turkey would say it was strange, but let the lawyer deal with him. If it was after noon, the roles would switch and Turkey would want to "...step behind his screen and black his eyes for him" (Melville 653). It made the other two scriveners do extra work and drove the lawyer almost crazy. I know it would drive me crazy. His constant passiveness and unwillingness to do anything that his boss asked of him would make me go insane if I were the lawyer. It all kind of made sense at the end though. It was also all very depressing. The man used to deal with all the letters at the Dead Letter's Office in Washington. I had to look up what this meant and it has to do with the letters that the destination of them cannot be determined. It would depress me knowing that those letters never made it to the rightful owners. This made me think that his constant "preferring not to" was a way of him sort of saying that he would prefer not to burn these letters even though he knows he has to. I think it was a way of stating his wanting to find the owners of the letters.
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