Herman Melville's short story Bartleby the Scrivener, was written for people used to conforming to others opinions to push the idea of individual thought and actions as opposed to compliance and to show the value of appreciation. I will show how Bartleby shows individual actions and thoughts with the mere phrase I prefer not to.
When Bartleby arrives, Melville uses imagery to create his character for the audience, stating him as "a motionless young man... pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, and incredibly forlorn (Melville, 1853)." So right off you're forced to have some sort of compassion for this character.
That compassion shortly dies when you start to realize Bartleby's personality. The compassion drifts to frustration. At first you feel sorry for him because you can relate to the loneliness and can understand what it's like to be new somewhere but when he starts to take advantage of that factor, you lose all pity you had for him. You begin to feel the frustration of the other three copyists as Bartleby again and again refuses to do what is his job, saying only I prefer not to, and you begin to lose what compassion and pity you may have had for this character to this point.
We begin to see the real Bartleby as, time and time again, he takes advantage of the narrators good nature. Whereas another person might have had Bartleby bodily thrown from the premises (as the new owners eventually do), our narrator seems to be of a different bent, having taken pity on Bartleby in the beginning of the story.
When the narrator first calls to Bartleby to come and help him. Bartleby comes to his desk and asks what is needed. The narrator tells him The copies, the copies. We are going to examine them (Melville, 1853). Bartleby replies I prefer not to and disappears behind his screen. When the narrator confronts him about this action, demanding to know Why do you refuse?, Bartleby merely states I prefer not to.
Each time that he was asked to do something, Bartleby would politely refuse, simply stating I prefer not to. Eventually the narrator can stand this no longer, and relieves Bartleby of his duties, requesting that Bartleby quit his position and leave the premises. He tells Bartleby that something must be done, and that he (the narrator) will help Bartleby to find some other occupation. He asks if he would like to be a copyist for someone else, or a store clerk, or bartending or perhaps being a bill collector or companion to a monied young man travelling abroad. Bartleby answers to each I would prefer not to make a change (Charters, 2011).
Eventually, our narrator, kind man that he is, relocates his offices as a means of getting rid of Bartleby. When he is visited a few weeks later by the landlord of his old offices, our narrator again tries to help Bartleby. Our narrator tells Bartleby that he must quit the premises or that the new owners will have him arrested. Bartleby again replies I would prefer not to. When our narrator next encounters Bartleby, he is in jail for not leaving the premises. He is refusing to eat, again simply stating I prefer not to. In the end, Bartlebys refusal to change, his refusal to eat, simply stating I prefer not to, he starves to death.
Although people of the time that this story was written could not comprehend ever telling their boss that they would not do something, Melville wanted to get people thinking. By having a protagonist that people could hate, he got them thinking about what it might mean to think as an individual.
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