"Bartleby the Scrivener"
Herman Melville
"I would prefer not to" (Melville, 649). Bartleby's main choice of words throughout the story reveals his sense of possible depression or hopelessness. As the story progresses, Bartleby prefers to not do more and more of what his work requires. The narrator, the lawyer, cannot seem to fire Bartleby, because he is sympathetic towards him. The lawyer offers Bartleby money, a place to live, a new job, etc., but Bartleby "prefers not" to change anything, so the lawyer does not know what to do.Therefore, the only logical option was to pack up his firm and move leaving Bartleby at the old business site; the lawyer thought Bartleby would leave though nothing Bartleby ever did would give the lawyer the notion that he would actually leave. We learn at the end of the story that Bartleby had once worked at a Dead Letter Office. A Dead Letter Office is a place where letters are burned because the person who was meant to receive them passed away. Having a job like that would be severely depressing. Knowing that you are burning letters meant for someone else who had passed away and never got to see how much the person writing loved them: it would be heart breaking. The letters lead to a lose of himself and a great sense of hopelessness that just increased as time went on. Sometimes the job one performs can emotionally harm the employed.
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