Bartleby book club questions

The reading plan

Meeting 1: Part 1

1. When a worker refuses routine duties, how much patience does an employer owe them?
2. What might the copyist's unusual quietness lead readers to assume, and how reliable are those assumptions?
3. Does accepting the copyist's resistance make the employer seem strong, weak, or neither?
4. How might sympathy and anger lead the employer toward different choices?
5. What makes a refusal of routine work seem reasonable or unreasonable to you?

Meeting 2: Part 2

6. Is leaving a fair response when Bartleby stays, or does it avoid the problem?
7. How does an office becoming a home change what you think people owe one another there?
8. Should permanent refusals receive a different response from occasional ones? Where would you draw the line?
9. What does the troubled departure suggest about the limits of sympathy?
10. Who seems to have more control when Bartleby stays and the lawyer leaves? What does control mean here?

Meeting 3: Part 3

11. What makes an offer of help useful if the person receiving it rejects change?
12. How do you judge the narrator's offers of work and shelter: enough, too little, or the wrong kind of help?
13. What, if anything, should limit respect for Bartleby's refusal of help?
14. How does Bartleby's imprisonment change the way you understand his resistance?
15. How does Bartleby's death affect your judgment of the earlier decision to leave?

Themes to talk about

Tips for the host

1. Open each meeting with one question everyone can answer, then go deeper.
2. Anyone who fell behind can catch up with the 15-minute summary.