Herman Melville's short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” is about a lawyer who hires a copyist, named Bartleby, who politely refuses not to work. While most employers would not tolerate an employee who continually prefers to do less work, this lawyer finds it difficult to fire or discipline his scribe and allows his insubordination to continue for an extended period of time. Bartleby shows great skill in copying documents and works diligently day and night. The lawyer soon discovers that Bartleby has begun residing in his office and never leaves. After only a few days of working there, he expresses his preference not to collaborate in the group reading of copied documents, a common scribe's task. When asked to do simple tasks, he replies, "I'd rather not." He uses this phrase repeatedly throughout the story. And he seems unaware of the consequences of his inactions and the emotional state it arouses in those around him. Some critics of the story suggest that there is a correlation between Bartleby's behavior and Herman Melville's current state of mind or "that Bartleby represents not only Melville but the nineteenth-century American artist in conflict with his environment" (Felheim 370). In the twenty-first century, when a person cannot easily adapt to their environment, it is commonly diagnosed as autism. Bartleby's ability to work well under precisely defined structural working conditions, his repetitive patterns of speech and behavior, and his inability to understand or show concern for the mental distress of those around him demonstrate characteristics commonly observed in a person with autistic disorder. Autism is defined as a behavioral disorder that manifests itself through “qualitative impairments in social communications…… half of article…… Full text. Network. November 15, 2011. .Klin, Ami, Warren Jones, Robert Schultz, and Fred Volkmar. “The Active Mind, or From Actions to Cognition: Lessons from Autism.” Philosophical Transactions: Biological Sciences 358.1430, Autism: Mind and Brain. February (2003): 345-360. Jstor. Network. November 15, 2011. .Melville, Herman. "Bartleby the scribe." The Norton Anthology of American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym and Julia Reidhead. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007. 2363-89. PrintRapin, Isabelle. "Autistic children: diagnosis and clinical characteristics". Pediatrics 87.5 (1991): 751. Academic research completed. Network. November 15 2011. .