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Ydmb's avatar

It is about quiet refusal, but he starves himself to death in a prison at the end :(

Ydmb's avatar

But Bartleby is about futility and alienation.

Amy Bowers's avatar

True. Odell uses him as an example of how to refuse without direct confrontation by subverting or not accepting the question/demand to begin with. Bartleby does not heed her advice to follow up the refusal with the replacement of another activity.