In Mr. Melvilles', "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-Street" an employee by the name of Bartleby is hired and begins to disrupt the work routine of this paticular office. Not necesarily disrespectful in an offending manner but more of the passive way which Bartleby lives by that offends his boss and co-workers. The only aspect of the story that kept me reading was to find out the deal with Bartleby. When asked to do certian tasks that the job required Bartleby would simply reply, "I prefer not to" and leave it at that. Could you imagine, telling your boss after they gave you an order, "I prefer not to", plain as day without any explanation, yeah right! But the boss was in a way intrigied with Bartelby. The narrarator states, after the repeated line of "I would prefer not to" was esclaimed, "With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence. But there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner touched and disconcerted me." This passage allows the readers to see that the narrarator is very tolerant of Bartleby but astound at his behavior. Eventualy Bartleby goes to jail because he is found living at the office, oddly enough, where he dies alone as he had lived.
This was a sad story but not tragic though it ended in death. Maybe because throughout the story I did not have a close relationship or feel of Bartleby. He is introduced in a distant and strange manner so as to not produce sentimental feelings towards him. Bartleby was not portrayed into a character of feeling, no emotion was sighted into any of his relationships. Not even a thank you to his boss to show he his gratful for the job he clearly does not deserve. However I did mangage to feel sorry for him because of the lonely life he led though not attached to his character.
And what about his work ethic? Sure there are people in the workplace that are incredably lazy and manage to not pick up a finger all day long, but to blatenly tell your boss "no," that is grounds for direct dismissal.