Bartleby was a very interesting character. It is difficult to imagine being so alone in the world that you have to live where you work. Not only his behavior but the things he said made me uncomfortable. His words did not fit in with his plan to stay and live there. He even refused to continue the work he was hired to do. There was always something about Bartleby that made him seem not human. .
The boss on the other hand was not reacting to Bartleby as one would expect a boss to react. Perhaps Bartleby knew he would react like that; the boss was also lenient with his other two scriveners. Maybe Bartleby chose this man for that reason. Bartleby could have easily observed the behaviors of the other two men that worked there. When he was hired he performed as the perfect employee, this would gain the bosses trust. Then when the boss asked something of Bartleby he tested the water and said in a very polite and pleasant manner that he would prefer not to. The more he would push the boss the more he found he could get a way with. .
Bartleby's behavior is not normal for a human. The way he entered the office for the first time, he was motionless. Even the way he always spoke in the same monotone voice. His meals were always small and quick. Even the boss described him as a ghost. .
The way he continued to roam around the office building after his employer moved was a little creepy. He would refuse every suggestion the boss made to him for employment and yet continued to insist he was not very particular. Even to say that he would not like a clerkship because it was too much confinement is ridiculous because he was in that confined office all the time. He also refused to eat dinner at the prison and eventually starved himself. .
The boss suggested to himself that maybe they were brought together by the fates. This is very possible; the boss is the only man I could imagine putting up with all of Bartleby's craziness.
I found Bartelby to be a humorous story. ... The story started off with Bartelby being one of the best writers. ... Although the boss is tempted to fire Bartelby, he cannot bring himself to do it. ... He then tried to tell Bartelby that he wanted him to leave the building Bartelby said "I"d prefer not to." ... In the end, Bartelby is arrested and assumed "insane" because he would not leave the premises. ...
Bartelby the Scrivener The Real Story Greetings reader, I am Bartelby. You may remember me from that terrible story about me told by that nameless narrator, he completely twisted the story to make himself look good. I can't believe that he told such lies about me in front of such a grand audience....
The Piazza Tales, By Herman Melville The Six Lengthy Short Stories The book that I read was The Piazza Tales. These tales were six short stories that consisted of The Piazza,Bartleby, Benito Cereno, The Lightening-rod Man, The Encantadas, and The Bell Tower. These six short stories were all aroun...
Additional pieces in our reading, such as Melville's Bartelby the Scrivner and Nathaniel Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown, indicate early American writers' ability and willingness to question the troubling things they witnessed among the society in which they lived. ...
The Legend of Bartleby "Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance." (13) This is so because there is nothing a rational person can do to combat a passive message. Should a group of people decide not to eat until their government complies with their demands, the government will feel the need to comply from a humanitarian stand point. There is nothing else that the government can do to prevent the death of its citizens and that would simply be unacceptable in the global spectrum of sociological science. The problem with passive resistance, however, is its failure to be...
