Of my comment that Herman Melville's novella Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street speaks to today's apathy, an attorney friend wrote:
"I can't agree with your reading. In my view Bartleby is, like Kafka's The Trial or Metamorphosis, a parable about the grinding impact of modernity and its inhumane conformity. Bartleby is the farthest thing from apathetic; he would prefer not to, but he is overwhelmed by the irresistible oppression of being a wage slave, for which there is no escape. Interesting that he is a writer as a trade. Alas Bartleby, alas humanity."
Other people have written that the story's themes are depression and isolation. Originally published in 1853, Bartleby, the Scrivener is told by a first person narrator, a reasonable and almost pathologically tolerant attorney, who hires a clerk named Bartleby whose job it is to copy legal papers. However when it comes to proofing the copies, a tedious task that requires participation of all of the copyists, Bartleby replies, "I would prefer not to." This quickly escalates to his preference not to leave the office—ever, and to do no work whatsoever—all of which the lawyer tries to mitigate by cajoling, begging, bribing, and finally vacating the premises and moving his office . . . only to learn that the new tenant cannot get rid of Bartleby either. In the end, this man who would "prefer not to" is carted away and starves to death in prison because eating does not appeal to him.
I am a writer by trade and a former actor who's spent my life preferring not to do any job that would get in the way of my art. Miraculously I've survived, but it may be due to the fact that although I've been picky about work hours, I've always done the work I've been hired to do, no matter what my private preferences may be. My main currency has been time—time to create. So certainly I understand preferring not to, but reading this story in 2019, in an era when the Naked Orange Emperor won an election where only 58 percent of eligible Americans voted, meaning that 100 million people "preferred not to" vote, according to the Washington Post, honestly made my skin crawl. Read More