Bartleby
"It is common usage. Every copyist is bound to help examine his copy. Is it not so? Will you not speak? Answer!" "I prefer not to," he replied in a flute-like tone. It seemed to me that while I had been addressing him, he carefully revolved every statement that I made fully comprehended the meaning; could not gainsay the irresistible conclusion; but, at the same time, some paramount consideration prevailed with him to reply as he did. "You are decided, then, not to comply with my request---a request made according to common usage and common sense?" He briefly gave me to understand that on that point my judgment was sound. Yes: his decision was irreversible. (Pg. 2337)
Bartleby's deliberate refusal to comply with instructions despite its logical nature as a task commonly performed by copyists threatens the narrator who safely thrives in upholding an entrenched system of conventional beliefs characteristic of his profession. The purposeful nature of Bartleby's assertion almost......
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