Your Questions, My Questions….
1.Why don't we know anything about Bartleby other than what we see of him in the story? Is that a weakness of the story?
2. Why doesn't the Boss just fire Bartleby?
3. What does the Boss do for a living? What kind of company is he running?
More questions to follow!
1. I think that by allowing us readers to know so little about Bartleby, it essentially lets us have a bigger reaction. Had we known so much about Bartleby, then we would know why he continues to say that he prefers not to, why he lives in the office, and why he refuses to leave when asked to do so. All the little things he does, and how he is so calm and polite when refusing to do a certain tasks, can make some readers angry but at the same time keep them interested in finding out why. The main point of the story is to find out why Bartleby does what he does. And in the end we still never find out. We were only given one subtle hint about Bartleby and then nothing. I think it makes the story more powerful and more meaningful.
2. Like I have said in other answers, Bartleby has a certain spot in the boss's heart. The boss just doesn't feel any anger towards Bartleby and his passive aggressiveness. The boss feels that he is doing a kind gesture that would be recognized by god. I think that the boss is sort of in shock that he literally told him that he was not going to do what the boss requested of him. So because he was in shock, he couldn't fire Bartleby. I also think that the boss kept him because in a way, he wanted to learn more about Bartleby and see what his next move was. He felt that Bartleby was an unfinished book that he just had to keep reading.
3. In the story, The boss was a lawyer who ran his own office on Wall Street. He had 2 scriveners and Ginger Nut who is the person who usually gets food .
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