Bartleby—A Law Student's Analysis

Bartleby accomplishes an extraordinary thing with a simple phrase "I would prefer not to." This simple phrase dismantles the narrator's business. Bartleby eventually stops working completely, adds no value, scares clients away and eventually forces the narrator to move. Additionally all the tenants are unable to operate their businesses and hound to narrator to get rid of Bartleby. Bartleby's "I would prefer not to" shows the power of simply being unwilling to play along. Bartleby does not flat out refuse or take positive measures. Simply by stating a preference to not participate, the whole structure begins to crumble. This is certainly exemplified by Urquart's use of the phrase in her one encounter with the abrasive Mallorn. She passively resists and stands her ground. (This seemed to have been a victory for her, but unfortunately it also seems like one of her few attempts to resist the system (besides golf). She is certainly a rounder character than Jensen and Voorhees, but covets prestigious and power as well. Perhaps Urquart's preference not to speaks for her rejection of male hierarchy, not a rejection of corporate greed in general.)

Bartleby's gentle refusal renders the narrator powerless. The narrator's odd sense of generosity allows him to rationalize away the uncooperative Bartleby. The narrator constantly readjusts his understanding of the situation to allow Bartleby to continue doing nothing, rationalizing his lack of control and avoidance of action as charity to Bartleby. But more than anything, it is the simple refusal to comply with norms that is so frightening for the narrator and so damaging. At one point Bartleby occupies the whole office and the narrator is locked out. His key does not work until Bartleby's "work" inside is done. What is most frightening is the spread of the natural and irresistible spread of preference (as opposed to duty): "He did not in the least roguishly accent the word prefer. It was plain that it involuntarily rolled form his tongued. I thought to myself, surely I must get rid of a demented man, who already has in some degree turned the tongues, if not the heads of myself and clerks. But I thought it prudent not to break the dismission at once" (18). Bartleby is a ghost story because it shows the ease of crushing the corporate, Wall St. monolith. Not playing along, not accepting the culture, is dangerous and contagious. If left unchecked, as here unchecked by the narrator, it threatens the entire business structure. The only solution is to take action and lock the menace up.

The character of Bartleby, I think does not go any further than a literary symbol to show the weakness of the corporate culture and the power of noncooperation. He does not exemplify the solution and his preference not to do anything obviously goes too far as he presumably starves to death from preferring not to eat. The eating motif figures prominently in the story. The first description of Bartleby's eating habits is actually in terms of the work he does: "At first Bartleby did an extraordinary quantity of writing. As if famishing for something to copy, he seemed to gorge himself on my documents. There was no pause for digestion" (7). Bartleby seems to sustain himself on work rather than anything else - his diet of ginger nuts cannot be enough, or so the narrator contemplates: "he never eats even vegetables, he eats nothing but ginger-nuts. My mind then ran on in reveries concerning the probable effects upon the human constitution of living entirely on ginger-nuts" (10). The view that the poor live off doing work certainly would accord with upper level labor managers of the time. Does this suggest that Bartleby's stoppage of work is what ultimately causes his death, namely that his attitude not to cooperate within the system is the same thing that takes away his only real source of sustenance? Perhaps. It would be a way to subtly reaffirm the values of the Wall St. class. Ghost stories are didactic tales that reaffirm a value system by showing the dreadful results of abandoning that system. Supernatural elements have to used of course because the rational, sensible world could never undermine the system. For Bartleby to be a ghost story, it must a ghost story by the executive class to scare itself in maintaining the status quo. Bartleby cannot be hero. He must die at the end.

-- AlexWang - 29 Mar 2012