출처: Herman Melville. ^Bartleby, The Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street^. 1856.
※ 발췌 (excerpt):
( ... ... )
Now and then, in the haste of business, it had been my habit to assit in comparing some brief document myself, calling Turkey or Nippers for this purpose. One object I had in placing Bartleby so handy to me behind the screen, was to avail myself of his services on such trivial occasions. It was on the third day, I think, of his being with me, and before any necessity had arisen for having his own writing examined, that, being much hurried to complete a small affair I had in hand, I abruptly called to Bartleby. In my haste and natural expectancy of instant compliance, I sat with my head bent over the original on my desk, and my right hand sideways, and somewhat nervously extened with the copy, so that immediately upon emerging from his retreat, Bartleby might snatch it and proceed to business without the least delay.
In this very attitude did I sit when I called to him, rapidly stating what it was I wanted him to do─namely, to examine a small paper with me. Imagine my surprise, nay, my consternation, when without moving from his privacy, Bartleby in a singularly mild, firm voice, replied, "I would prefer not to."
I sat awhile in perfect silence, rallying my stunned faculties. Immediately it occurred to me that my ears had deceived me, or Bartleby had entirely misunderstood my meaning. I repeated my request in the clearest tone I could assume. But in quite as clear a one came the previous reply, "I would prefer not to."
"Prefer not to," echoed I, rising in high excitement, and crossing the room with a stride. "What do you mean? Are you moon-struck? I want you to help me compare this sheet here─take it," and I thrust it towards him.
"I would prefer not to," said he.
I looked at him steadfastly. His face was leanly composed; his gray eye dimly calm. Not a wrinkle of agitation rippled him. Had there been the least uneasiness, anger, impatience or impertinence in his manner; in other words, had there been any thing ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently dismissed him from the premises. But as it was, I should have as soon thought of turning my pale plaster-of-paris bust of Cicero out of doors. I stood gazing at him awhile, as he went on with his own writing, and then reseated myself at my desk. This is very strange, thought I. What had one best do? But my business hurried me. I concluded to forget the matter for the present, reserving it for my future leisure. So calling Nippers from the other room, the paper was speedily examined.
A few days later after this, Bartleby concluded four lengthy documents, being quadruplicates of a week's testimony taken before me in my Hight Court of Chancery. It became necessary to examine them. It was an important suit, and great accuracy was imperative. Having all things arranged I called Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut from the next room, meaning to place the four copies in the hands of my four clerks, while I should read from the original. Accordingly Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut had taken their seats in a row, each with his document in hand, when I called to Bartleby to join this interesting group.
"Bartleby! quick, I am waiting."
I heard a slow scrape of his chair legs on the uncarpeted floor, and soon he appeared standing at the entrace of his hermitage.
"What is wanted?" said he mildly.
"The copies, the copies," said I hurriedly. "We are going to examine them. There"─and I held toward him the fourth quadruplicate.
"I would prefer not to," he said, and gently disappeared behind the screen.
For a few moments I was turned into a pillar of salt, standing at the head of my seated column of clerks. Recovering myself, I advanced towards the screen, and demanded the reason for such extraordinary conduct.
"Why do you refuse?"
"I would prefer not to."
With any other man I should have flown outright into a dreadful passion, scorned all further words, and thrust him ignominiously from my presence. But there was something about Bartleby that not only strangely disarmed me, but in a wonderful manner touched and disconcerted me. I began to reason with him.
"These are your own copies we are about to examine. It is labor saving to you, because one examination will answer for your four papers. 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 irresitible conclusions; but, at the same time, some paramount consideration prevailed with him to reply as he did.
( ... ... )
“Bartleby,” said I, “Ginger Nut is away; just step round to the Post Office, won’t you? (it was but a three minute walk,) and see if there is any thing for me.”
“I would prefer not to.”
“You will not?”
“I prefer not.”
( ... ... )
출처 2: Jane Desmarais. Preferring not to:The Paradox of Passive Resistance in Herman Melville’s “Bartleby. Journal of Short Story in English. Spring 2001.
※ 발췌 (excerpt):
“Bartleby, the Scrivener” (1853) is a story of passive resistance. And as the narrator is forced to admit, “Nothing so aggravates an earnest person as a passive resistance.” Refusing to kow-tow to the demands of his employer, and working to his own individual rule, Bartleby represents a challenge to capitalist, corporatist ideologies. He declines to do what is asked of him over and above the basic task of copying documents. He is an unostentatious figure, “pallidly neat, pitiably respectable, incurably forlorn”, who works “silently, palely, mechanically”, but he exercises enormous power by refusing to comply with simple and undemanding requests. On the third day of being installed in a legal office in Wall Street, he is asked by his boss to examine a paper with him, but “without moving from his privacy”, he replies “I would prefer not to”. Towards the end of the story, he is discovered occupying the office at weekends. Bartleby’s verbal obstruction becomes physical.
The phrase "prefer not to", or what Gilles Deleuze has called the "Formula",[주]2 recurs throughout the story and its repetition drives Bartleby's colleagues to combative fury. In their simplicity and politeness, these five words--"I would prefer not to"--and the use of the verb "prefer" most notably--achieve a paradoxical significance within the narrative.
- The statement juxtaposes a conditional with a negative sense, and this lends the reply its force.
- On the one hand, Bartleby refuses politely, using the conditional form "would" suggesting that there might be a choice in the matter.
- On the other hand, this choice and therefore expression of politeness is an illusion, for Bartleby blatantly refuses to do anything asked of him.
[주]2. Deleuze uses this term in “Bartleby; Or, The Formula”, in Essays Critical and Clinical, which was first published in 1993, and brings together his essays on a variety of writers and philosophers. To “Bartleby”, as to the other essays, Deleuze adopts a ‘symptomatological’ approach, diagnosing the ways in which language, pushed to and beyond its own limits, represents the process of life itself. He writes:
The formula bourgeons and proliferates. At each occurrence, there is a stupor surrounding Bartleby, as if one had heard the Unspeakable or the Unstoppable. And there is Bartleby’s silence, as if he had said everything and exhausted language at the same time. With each instance, one has the impression that the madness is growing: not Bartleby’s madness in “particular”, but the madness around him, notably that of the attorney, who launches into strange propositions and even stranger behaviours.
[주]3. The affirmative and negative nature of Bartleby’s “preferring not to” has been noted by Jaworski: Bartleby “does not refuse, but neither does he accept, he advances and then withdraws into this advance, barely exposing himself in a nimble retreat from speech” (19).
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