American Literature / Unit 8 AML 0726 short lesson, about 20 seconds
"Bartleby, the Scrivener"
Captions available
The idea
A Wall Street lawyer hires a copyist who begins refusing tasks with a single sentence, stops working, refuses to leave, and is finally carried to prison, where he dies facing a wall. The narrator, comfortable and decent, never understands him and cannot help him.
In practice
A copyist who stops copying.
Where people slip
The story gives no reason, and means not to.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
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