Bartleby

“It is common usage. Every copyist is bound to help examine his copy. Is it not so? Will you not speak? Answer!” “I prefer not to,” he replied in a flute-like tone. It seemed to me that while I had been addressing him, he carefully revolved every statement that I made fully comprehended the meaning; could not gainsay the irresistible conclusion; but, at the same time, some paramount consideration prevailed with him to reply as he did. “You are decided, then, not to comply with my request---a request made according to common usage and common sense?” He briefly gave me to understand that on that point my judgment was sound. Yes: his decision was irreversible. (Pg. 2337)

Bartleby’s deliberate refusal to comply with instructions despite its logical nature as a task commonly performed by copyists threatens the narrator who safely thrives in upholding an entrenched system of conventional beliefs characteristic of his profession. The purposeful nature of Bartleby’s assertion almost startles the narrator who, as “an eminently safe man” (2330) has abided by the rules and restrictions that govern a rigid system imposed on him by society. As evident in his dislike for more dynamic specialties in law (trial law), the narrator seeks to preserve a sense of structure and form facilitated by his uncontroversial and unchanging work with bonds and mortgages. The thought of someone in Bartleby’s relatively low position challenging an existing system upon which he almost religiously places his faith baffles the narrator. The narrator is further disturbed by the consciousness of Bartleby’s outright refusal despite appearing to fully comprehend the logical reasoning behind the narrator’s request to copy-check his work. The concept of alternative choice and preference in the face of an established way of conducting business represents a kind of heresy to his institutionalized faith in a conventional system imposed by society. Bartleby introduces to him, for the first time, the possibility of choice. Before now, the narrator knows of nothing than conducting himself in a manner consistent with the demands of productivity and efficiency so highly valued in the capitalistic society in which he lives.

Bartleby’s character emerges as a challenge to everything the narrator has come to unquestioningly accept in life. Unlike the Bartleby’s inflexibility and