Should I stay or should I go? Herman Melville’s short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener" & pandemic-era Great Resignation
In this course, Premise students explored the questions: “Should I stay or should I go? Is opting out a choice?”
We read Herman Melville’s short story "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street and two recent magazine articles to help us get at the enduring questions of when we should opt-out. Together, we discussed how opting out can be both rational and radical, depending on the circumstances.
In the story, a Wall Street lawyer hires a new clerk who, after an initial bout of hard work, refuses to make copies or do any other task required of him, refusing with the words "I would prefer not to." The story ends with the narrator saying, "Ah Bartleby! Ah humanity!"
The participants dug into the various meanings of these phrases and we tried to figure out why “I would prefer not to.” is slightly different from “I refuse.” We wondered how much room, if any, we have in our lives to simply “prefer not to.”
Students also read two short contemporary articles on the pandemic phenomenon dubbed “The Great Resignation” by the media.
We discussed the phenomenon of the mass resignations that we see in the economy, and we used “Bartleby, the Scrivener” as a point of comparison and contrast.
Premise Student Questions
Premise students came to class with questions for the group. Here’s a sample of what our students were wondering about the question: “Should I stay or should I go?”.
Wondering about and would like to talk about Barteby’s former job at the Dead Letters Office. How did this shape his decision to opt-out?
Is a person justified in not doing anything at all? Shouldn't you have to articulate why you aren't conforming, out of respect for others, so that perhaps a new consensus can be built around values?
How was being passive and avoidant beneficial for Bartleby? Was he really being passive after all?
Why are boundaries so hard to set in the workplace?
Why does the narrator feel so obligated to care for Bartleby when he becomes recalcitrant? Does it tell us something about our social bonds?
At one point the narrator says that Bartleby is going to be the meaning of his life- why is that?
Articles We Read About the Great Resignation:
Three Myths of the Great Resignation(Atlantic, Dec. 8, 2021)
You Quit. I Quit. We All Quit. And It’s Not a Coincidence: Why the decision to leave a job can become contagious. (NYT, January 21, 2022)
Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation (MIT Sloan Review, January, 11, 2022)
