Bartleby

>>9409221
I would prefer not to.

This post shouldnt have any replies

>>9409426
I'd prefer not to not reply to this.

He doesn't want to be a human copy machine anymore. But he is too traumatized by what life has brought him so far that he is unable to protest.
It reflects the coercion and environment of the modern office where superficial manners and courtesies create an artificial pretense between employers and employees that the employee has any choice in the matter.
That is why the reply is so shocking to the reader. When ASKED to do something, a reasonable response is that you would prefer not to. But in the modern work environment the question is rhetorical.

>>9409410
Ah, anon; ah, humanity

>>9409426
I literally won't reply to this post.

>>9409457
Nah he was just autistic

>>9410801
Bartleby really does seem like an autist to me. Like a real, no-joke autistic person, in a way that I found shocking coming from a story written in the 1850s.

It seems like the story is more about the narrator, though, and the way he grows and changes by reacting to Bartleby.

Anyone else cry reading this? I think we've all felt like Bartleby at one point or another, only most of us don't have the courage to stand up to our tyrants, not even feebly like Bartleby.

>>9411045
>crying over words
liberal retard detected

>>9411052
Huh? I don't see the connection between what I said and my political beliefs. I'm a conservative, by the way.

>>9411061
If you're conservative then you should be proud about masculinity and standing up to tyrants like a real conservative man and not like a numale cuck

>>9411069
Please stay on your containment board

So wait, does Slavoj Zizek like Herman Melville?

>>9411079
The days of Marxism on here are owner. We're here to stay.
Go to /r/books if you want to cry over books like a faggot.

>>9411096
If you can't feel strong emotions reading literature why even bother?

>>9411045

No, I didn't. I did feel very hollow for a good while after, and I still have some reservations about rereading it.

I don't read Bartleby as being about standing up against your tyrants, I read it as just giving up in the most profound sense imaginable, and that terrifies me.

>>9411096
I am not the person you were replying to or the type of person who cries over books or a Marxist. I just want obnoxious faggots to go and stay go.

>>9411103
>being controlled by emotions instead of rationality and logic
And you call yourself conservative? Nice try, numale

>>9411112
Rationality and logic are only tools. A life without emotions is no life at all. If you don't have the wisdom to see that you're no conservative at all. There's nothing that says numale fedora-wearer like a person who strives to live as a purely logical being.

>>9411171
You talk like a woman. Go back to tumblr with your 'muh feels'

>>9411106
>I read it as just giving up in the most profound sense imaginable
That's how his boss felt; but that's not how Bartleby felt: Bartleby never gave up: he stood his ground in the face of hypocrisy and madness and tyranny. He won: he would not allow himself to be manipulated nor controlled. Bartleby won.

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>>9411096
Go back to babby's forum, /pol/tard! You're out of your depth here, junior.
Hell, I'm surprised you can spell /lit/.....good for you!

I read this in high school and it affected my grades because I realised that I would really prefer not to do the infuriating busywork expected of students, and that I was previously submitting myself meekly for reasons I did not believe in

>>9409426
It's kinda important. No idea why you would say that

>>9411176

I would prefer not to.

>>9411561
>tfw too /lit/ for homework

>>9411052
retard
>>9411061
intellectual

>>9411850
that's about right and now I'm a bricklayer with no gf

>>9411045
I did. It was the only time I've ever cried to a written story. Melville is a genius.

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has anyone seen this adaptation? i don't remember much because i was young and stoned but it was definitely strange.

of course, the story is good as well. i don't get people saying it was transcendent and brought them to tears, though.

>>9411096
> The days of Marxism here are owner.

Gotta love them freudian slips.