Bartleby

[jbor]

I think you've hit the nail on the head, Paul. Bartleby's "I prefer not to"
is part of an inter-personal exchange, where the sense of what Bartleby
would prefer not to *do* is understood (by both participants in the
exchange, and by the reader of the story) because it has been stated in the
request. It's quite a standard construction in spoken English(es) - "I don't
want to", "are you going to?" etc. as responses to utterances like "Do your
work" or "She told me to do my work" etc. In an informal context you'd only
really need to repeat the main part of the verb for extra emphasis of some
kind. I wouldn't call it a grammatical error.

It's important that in the story Bartleby varies his replies. He also says
"At present I would prefer not to be a little reasonable", "I'd prefer that
you would withdraw for the present", "I would prefer to be left alone here",
"I would prefer not", and "I would prefer *not* to quit you". It's the "I
would prefer" stem which is repeated in each new manifestation of Bartleby's
obstinacy, and which the other employees discuss at some length and
experiment with and adopt into their own discourse patterns. Thus, it's the
modality ("would"), which evokes both civility and indeterminacy in regard
to consequence, and the simple expression of a personal preference without a
reason, or an imperative, attached to it, which are being foregrounded by
Melville - Bartleby's passive resistance, in other words.

I haven't read the Deleuze article which Heikki mentioned either, but I
think that as well as stymieing the conversation Bartleby's quiet resistance
upsets the accepted employer/employee protocols, and throws the onus of
*material* action back onto his interlocutor, in the same way that the
non-delivery of a letter compels the sender to take the next step and try to
force the issue (whatever it might be).

best



Paul wrote:


> The whole thing merely drew emphasis for me to the fact that American
> English (as used by poor Bartleby) practically demands the ellipticizing
> of the infinitive verb in this particular type of construction. Whether
> such has anything to do with the incompleteness and agrammaticallity
> Deleuze talks about I don't know. Would have to read the article I guess.