Bartleby from Bartleby the Scrivener Herman Melville's short story "Bartleby the Scrivener" introduces us to many interesting characters with many different personalities. However, among Ginger Nut, Turkey, Nippers and the old man who tells the story, the one who seems most mysterious to us is Bartleby. Bartleby is a scrivener who, simply put, is a human version of a modern photocopier. He does his job extremely well, almost never stopping and getting things done quickly and efficiently. However, he is a man of few words. In fact, he is a man who has only one sentence: "I would rather not do it." » He says this in response to anything asked of him other than copying documents. In fact, he flatly refuses to do anything his boss (the narrator) asks him to do. This is the first step in confusing the reader about Bartleby. Melville, however, never seems to offer an answer to this mystery. Another interesting thing I noticed is that Bartleby never said "I won't do it", but "I'd rather not do it". This would indicate that the person he is speaking to has the ability to choose what Bartleby will or will not do, but it is said in such a way that it manages to confuse the narrator's feelings and provoke him, for a long time. time, to simply accept the statement as a “no”. This strikes me as a weakness of the narrator as a business owner, but at the same time I wonder what Bartleby's purpose is in responding this way. Another interesting characteristic of Bartleby is his living habits, which we learn about later in the story. He apparently lives in the office (originally without the narrator's knowledge). He sleeps, washes and works in the same place. What makes this even more interesting is that he refuses (or states that he "would rather not") change his living arrangements. When the narrator moves his business and Bartleby refuses to vacate the premises after the new tenant arrives, the narrator is seen as responsible for Bartleby, simply because he is the only person who comes close to knowing him. After a long process that ends with Bartleby in prison, who seems to regard the narrator as the reason for his presence, the story quickly ends with Bartleby's disappearance and death, and the strange introduction of the "grub man" ( which also seems like it has a deeper significance in the story that I can't place).