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Why Is Bartleby The Scrivener Selfish

684 Words3 Pages

Karl Marx condemned the capitalist system for alienating and blocking human creativity. Capitalists have full control over the means of production, and workers do not. Workers are required to fulfill the capitalists needs without being allowed to contribute their own ideas for a product. As a result, people become machines; losing touch with human nature and basing their decisions on money, instead of kindness. Melville's “Bartleby the Scrivener” is a story about rebellion. The narrator, a lawyer, hired Bartleby as his new scrivener hoping to increase his law firm's productivity. At first first arriving at the office, Bartleby is extremely productive, so much that he impressed the narrator. However, the job of a scrivener is medial, and Bartleby eventually rebels against some of his responsibilities, saying "I would prefer not to.” At first, the narrator is willing to serve the scribes "preferences", but Bartleby's small resistances quickly escalate throughout the story, leaving him …show more content…

However, when the lawyer asks Bartleby to to help “examine a small paper,” he replied “I would prefer not to.” Bartleby has started to rebel against the Lawyers capitalist system, and from this point forward, Bartleby will reply “I would prefer not to” until he is left to stare at the office wall, then slowly lead to his death. The lawyer is shocked and angered by such passive-rebellious act. Partly because he has never dealt with with this type of dissent before. When Turkey is drunk in the afternoon, or when Nippers is feeling sick in the morning, they still do their job. Bartleby’s “I would prefer not to” is so alien to the lawyer that he believed that his “ears had deceived

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