Bartleby the scrivener

This audiobook is narrated by a digital voice. In Bartleby, the Scrivener, Herman Melville offers a haunting exploration of passive resistance, alienation, and the mechanization of human life within modern bureaucratic systems. Set in a quiet law office on Wall Street, the story unfolds through the perspective of a mild-mannered attorney who hires a new copyist: Bartleby, a pale and silent man whose work ethic is, at first, impeccable. But when Bartleby begins to respond to tasks with the cryptic phrase, “I would prefer not to,” a strange inertia takes hold. He refuses not only to follow orders, but eventually to engage with the world at all. Despite his quiet defiance, he offers no justification, no anger, and no rebellion—only a calm, unwavering noncompliance that both baffles and fascinates his employer. As the lawyer tries, with increasing desperation, to help or remove him, Bartleby’s presence transforms from a curiosity into a mirror reflecting the dehumanizing forces of capitalism, isolation, and moral ambiguity. Melville’s minimalist prose intensifies the story’s philosophical weight, leaving readers unsettled, contemplative, and uncertain about where sympathy ends and complicity begins. Part absurdist parable, part psychological case study, Bartleby, the Scrivener endures as a foundational text in American literature and modern existentialism. Its simple premise conceals profound questions about free will, social responsibility, and the quiet, devastating power of refusal.