Blog Post #1 Topic #2

Bartleby is in no way justified in behaving the way he did. It is unquestionable that he was a victim of his circumstances--we do not know very much about Bartleby and his life before he started working for the narrator, but it is quite obvious that he must have had to endure dire situations to have ended up where he did. Regardless, Bartleby should have kept his private life separate from his professional life. In a sense, Bartleby utilized his soft-spoken nature to his full advantage--he was able to get the narrator to sympathize with him, so much so that the narrator found himself creating falsified justifications in his head in order to make sense of all of Bartleby’s unexplainable actions.

Bartleby could have handled his situation in so many alternative ways. He could have respected the narrator as his boss and never set up shop in his office in the first place. He could have come clean about everything the moment he was caught in the act. Simplest of all, he could have just told the narrator about his conditions from the very beginning and hoped that he would be kind enough to provide him with a temporary shelter. The most frustrating thing about all of this was Bartleby's blatant refusal to carry out any task asked of him, no matter how simple or effortless the task was. Considering that he practically made a home out of the narrator’s office, Bartleby could at least do whatever his boss asked of him. Instead, the only thing that came out of his mouth when he was presented with a task was “I prefer not to.” In using this phrase, Bartleby made it seem like he was not demanding to be exempt from doing any work; he merely “preferred” not to. He gave the narrator some choice in this sense, so it felt like the narrator could act upon his own will.

It is important to keep in mind that Bartleby worked for the narrator; he had every reason to treat the narrator with the utmost respect as his boss and his superior (at least in the workplace). The way he acted towards his boss was unacceptable. Was it possible that he was going through a lot at the moment? That was probably the case. Nonetheless, the workplace is a place where one is expected to act with the highest degree of professionalism regardless of external influences. It vexes me that the narrator chose to put up with Bartleby’s irrational behavior for so long. He must have really pitied him, but even that does not seem like a logical enough reason to continually forgive Bartleby for his actions. Put yourself in the narrator’s shoes. One would simply go mad if he or she had to endure all the buffoonery he was forced to endure. What’s even worse is the fact that when the narrator tried to get rid of Bartleby, he refused to comply (as if he actually had a choice). Bartleby’s actions were simply inexcusable.