Week 7 Analysis

This week I will be doing a close reading of "Melville: Bartleby the Scrivener" by  Herman Melville. The section of text that I will look at closer is "In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly stating what it was I wanted him to do—namely, to examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving from his privacy, Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, “I would prefer not to.”"(p.302). This passage is shows the first of many time the boss would ask his employe Bartleby to examine a document, which is part of his job as a Scrivener. Bartleby would respond with I would prefer not all the time, even though he was the one to respond to the ad for the job. It funny how Bartleby use the word prefer instead of something else like I do not want to do it or you know F*** this shit. To me this seemed polite and never seemed aggressive, this was a passive aggressive tone that I soon realized was throughout the entire story. At first I thought he was being super rude and defiant but he was being a little more polite than I thought at first. As well as his boss who was also kind of passive aggressive when came to dealing with his employe Bartleby. I think being an employe or just working during this time especially on wall street gave people this feeling of wanting to work when they want to. I think it also show this kind of relationship between boss and employee that it was never very easy to deal with someone who doesn't want to work even thought they are very good at there job. As well as when does a bosss need to put there foot down when an employee is not doing what they are suppose to.