Bartelby the Scrivener

Herman Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" was to me a rather disquieting text. It illuminates the effect that a simple refusal can have. Simply by refusing to do anything Bartleby was able to just stay in the office without doing any work or paying anything. Still this brings up the question of how far can a refusal go. How far can simply refusing to go along with society take a person. The answer is it can take you as far as society will let you before violence becomes an option. In a violent society if a person refuses to do something then the person asking will just hit them and that will be the end of it. On the other hand in a society where violence is frowned upon by simply refusing to do what is required of them a person can essentially stop their interactions with society. In the example of "Bartleby the Scrivener" the narrator eventually moved his entire office to a new location in order to be rid of Bartleby rather than attempt to force him out. Eventually of course the landlord called the police and they took Bartleby away, but the amount of time it took for them to finally decide on this course of action is rather surprising. So could this then be used as a test of the level of violence inherent in society. Have a person refuse to abide by the rules of society and see what happens. No violence just a simple refusal. And then judge the level of violence by how long it took for society to resort to physical means of removing the offender. Of course this isn't a very valid test. There a types of societies where the offender could be removed without violence. For instance if the rest of society simply ignored the offender completely, then eventually the offender would starve because they would be unable to eat. Still any option capable of removing the offender would count towards the test, and the very option taken could be used as an indicator of society type. Also in "Bartleby the Scrivener" the narrator and the other scriveners eventually start to use the word prefer in place of more emphatic choices. This has two implications. First the effect of one person simply using the same phrase over and over can be profound. Second the effects of prefer in place of stronger words is by itself interesting. It implies that although the person who is using it would rather not do the stated task they will if they have to and that they are open to persuasion. This sets up the asker towards trying to persuade the user into doing it. However by using it in this context the user actually means that they will not do the task. So the asker will waste their efforts trying to persuade the user when in fact the user cannot be persuaded. This is opposed to simply stating outright that the user will not do the task. In which case the asker would immediately abandon the user in order to find a more willing person or simply order the user to do it whether they want to or not. In this case the eventual result is the same. The narrator eventually orders Bartleby to do the tasks and Bartleby refuses anyway. However the key is that by using the word prefer instead of stronger words the user is able to redirect to asker into futile lines for at least a little while. This may or may not be helpful in the situation the asker finds them self, but it is useful to know. At worst the asker has to reorient themselves for a few seconds in order to switch to ordering that the task be done instead of asking. At best it could throw the asker completely off track.