Who is Bartleby? (Blog 6)

"Bartleby, The Scrivener was a short story written in 1853 by American writer Herman Melville. Essentially the entire story took place in a small copying office on Wall Street.
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The plot began with the unnamed owner of the law-copyist business. He had two employees that appeared to feed off one another in their fields. But he recently hired a new copier, Bartleby, a man of few words who at first, was the most diligent and perfect copier the boss had ever seen. But as time went on, Bartleby grew resentful towards his boss, and would simply reply to each request "I would prefer not to."Each day the boss grew more and more frustrated, but had a soft spot towards him for a reason he could not explain. After the bosses long dispute with himself on whether he should fire Bartleby or not, he finally followed through with the decision after several attempts. However, Bartleby had refused to leave for so long that the boss himself had to change the location of his office. After reading the story I constantly questioned what had happened to Bartleby, did he have a psychotic break? Has he always been this reluctant, but just became comfortable enough with the boss to show this side? Bartleby began the story mysteriously, and ended it mysteriously. No one was sure why he acted the way he did, and they weren't sure whether to feel sympathy or anger towards him. I felt both by the end of the story. I grew frustrated with him when he did not do his job that the other employees were doing without hesitation, but then I felt sorry for him when the boss kicked him out and he had nowhere to go. I found it extremely sad that Bartleby would rather go to prison than leave his place of work.

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