Short Story: Bartleby, the Scrivener

Overview
"Bartleby, the Scrivener" recounts the peculiar employment of an enigmatic copyist by a Wall Street lawyer and narrator. The narrator's initially mundane office life becomes haunted by Bartleby's growing refusal to perform his duties, delivered in the eerie, polite refrain "I would prefer not to." The tale reads like a parable, its spare events and cryptic protagonist inviting moral, social, and existential interpretation.

Plot
A middle-aged lawyer who manages a small firm hires Bartleby to help with an increasing volume of copying. Bartleby proves efficient at first, but when asked to undertake a particular task he quietly replies, "I would prefer not to" and declines. The narrator reassigns him, reduces his responsibilities, and tries various mild stratagems to get him to work, but Bartleby's refusals multiply. Eventually Bartleby ceases nearly all engagement, remaining physically present in the office, often staring at a blank wall.
As the situation worsens, the narrator relocates his practice to avoid confrontation, leaving Bartleby behind in the building. Landlord complaints lead to Bartleby's arrest and confinement in the Tombs, New York's prison. The narrator visits and attempts to rescue him, only to find Bartleby lifeless when he returns: Bartleby has starved to death. The narrator is left with a blend of pity and helplessness, and the story closes with a contemplation of isolation and the "thin, stray piece of writing" that Bartleby leaves behind.

Characters
The narrator is a pragmatic, genteel lawyer who values order and routine; he is both compassionate and self-protective, ultimately revealing limitations in moral courage. Bartleby is strikingly passive and inscrutable, neither overtly malicious nor conventionally rebellious. His repeated, calm refusals and his fixation on the blank wall produce a chilling effect, turning inertia into a form of resistance or protest.
Minor figures, the narrator's clerks, Turkey and Nippers, and an amiable office boy named Ginger Nut, serve as foils, embodying conventional workplace types against which Bartleby's anomaly is starkly visible. The city itself functions almost as a character, its bureaucracy and commercial ethos framing the human drama.

Themes
Alienation and dehumanization under modern economic systems lie at the story's heart. Bartleby's passive noncompliance can be read as an indictment of routinized labor, a refusal that exposes the hollowness of transactional human relations. The phrase "I would prefer not to" becomes both a personal assertion and a moral puzzle: it resists categorization as mere laziness, insanity, or principled protest.
The narrative also probes responsibility and complicity. The narrator oscillates between tenderness and self-preservation, illustrating how social actors often fail to respond adequately to suffering within the structures they serve. Law, commerce, and bureaucracy are portrayed as indifferent mechanisms that can infantilize, marginalize, or erase individuals who do not conform.

Style and Legacy
Melville's crisp, ironic voice blends realism with parable-like ambiguity, using precise detail and judicial restraint to amplify the story's moral opacity. Symbolic elements, the blank wall, Bartleby's pallid presence, and the prison, operate without heavy-handed explanation, leaving readers to weigh competing interpretations. The tale's brevity and concentrated mystery have made it a touchstone for discussions of passive resistance, workplace alienation, and the human cost of capitalist modernity.
Enduringly influential, the story invites readings through philosophical, psychological, and sociopolitical lenses. Its famous refrain continues to resonate as a quietly subversive statement, and Bartleby's fate remains a powerful commentary on what happens to those who withdraw from the expectations of a system that values production above personhood.