The Strangest Man Ever

Herman Melville's Bartelby, the Scrivener followed the strange encounter between a lawyer and his employee.  The speaker seems to be a relatively normal lawyer of the time.  He prefers to tend things that did not involve a lot of human interaction, and his employees seem to indicate that he is alright with mediocrity.  But a new person is hired in the office, his name being Bartleby.  This new employee seem to have nearly no social skills, and is unable to function in a normal work environment.  Yet this employee is able to manipulate the speaker into letting him live at the office and do literally no work.  Bartelby simply would use the same phrase that enabled him to do or not do whatever he wanted, "I would prefer not to," (Melville, 650).  After going to extremes to get rid of Bartelby, like move his offices, he realized that he misses Bartelby for whatever reason.  Bartelby seems to mirror the speaker, as there was never a family mentioned or any activity other than work.  Through Bartelby similarity to the speaker, the speaker feels sympathy for Bartelby, and tries to protect him from the outside world.  Bartelby eventually dies in prison, which could symbolize that the speakers will die alone too.