This dramatically inverts the relationship between the employer and the employee, one of the key aspects of capitalist system. The lawyer “vaguely surmises… that all justice and all reasoning is on the other side… and needs reinforcement for his own faltering mind” (11).

The lawyer is “strangely disarmed” (11) by Bartleby’s firm refusal, and unknowingly submits to him, not only failing to fire him but also seeking approval from his other three underlings in these confrontations. By using the phrase, “I would prefer not to”, Bartleby’s also causes the lawyer “to stagger in his own plainest faith” (11 and to doubt the rules upon which his own society is built. The capitalistic economy has stripped him of his humanity, and he would “prefer not” to continue taking part in it. Both of Bartleby’s jobs provide no outlet for communication, individuality, creativity or growth. This job consisted of a “pallid hopelessness”() of “continually handling these dead letters and assorting them for the flames”(). The life- sucking effect of capitalism is also demonstrated by Bartleby’s previous occupation as “a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter Office” (). (Marx) By “preferring not to”, Bartleby protests against alienating, mundane labor. As stated by Karl Marx, a German economic revolutionary, “Capital is dead labor, which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labor, and lives the more, the more labor it sucks. Unlike Bartleby, however, his coworkers have been indoctrinated into conforming through the never-fully-satisfying reward of wages. As scriveners, Bartleby and his coworkers live an automaton-like existence, robotically reproducing documents written by others. He prefers not to comply with the dehumanizing reality of the American capitalist economy.

What exactly does Bartleby “prefer not to do”? Bartleby rejects the capitalist hierarchy on which Wall Street is built and thus also rejects the lawyer’s authority. This display of subordinance, however, is only an illusion. Through the use of key words such as “would” and “prefer”, Melville gives Bartleby the appearance of submitting to his employer’s, the lawyer’s, judgment and authority. He embodies passive resistance through the repetition of the response “I would prefer not to” when faced with a command from his employer. In contrast, Bartleby distinguishes himself to the narrator and the reader as “the strangest I ever saw or heard of”() by rejecting the mundane work of copying legal documents and proof reading them. Bartleby is presented as a foil to his repressed and ignorant coworkers: Turkey, Nippers, and Gingernut who participate, however dysfunctionally, in the brutal system. Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener” scrutinizes the impersonal, harsh, and isolating labor conditions in America soon after the industrial revolution.

Melville i would prefer not to