Bartleby and Modernity<\/p>\n
Written in the middle of the nineteenth century, the story of Bartleby is stunning in its presaging of the alienation of urban middle class life in the twentieth century and in our own time. In the words of continental philosopher Hannah Arendt, the world inhabited by Melville\u2019s characters is fundamentally a \u2018society of job-holders.\u2019<\/p>\n
Turkey, Nippers, Ginger-Nut, and later Bartleby stand in as social types of this coming milieu, with their disenchantment, \u2018ambition and digestion,\u2019 and automaton qualities. Bartleby\u2019s eccentricities are initially viewed in a positive light, as contributions. \u2018His steadiness, his freedom from all dissipation, his incessant industry\u2026his great, stillness, his unalterableness of demeanor under all circumstances, made him a valuable acquisition.\u2019 (13) This modern efficiency is set against a backdrop of disillusion and sterility in the financial district. In a brilliant showcasing of Melville\u2019s descriptive qualities, he remarks, \u2018This building too, which of week-days hums with industry and life, at nightfall echoes with sheer vacancy, and all through Sunday is forlorn. And here Bartleby makes his home; sole spectator of a solitude which he has seen all populous\u2014a sort of innocent and transformed Marius brooding among the ruins of Carthage!\u2019\u00a0 (14)<\/p>\n
There are many ways of approaching this story. I read it in this particular light mostly because of the sharp focus on the corporate world in our time. More importantly, the critique of labor implied herein is still relevant as our corporate culture continues to fulfill the Arendtian \u2018society of jobholders.\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bartleby and Modernity Written in the middle of the nineteenth century, the story of Bartleby is stunning in its presaging of the alienation of urban middle class life in the twentieth century and in our own time. In the words of continental philosopher Hannah Arendt, the world inhabited by Melville\u2019s characters is fundamentally a \u2018society […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81,84],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-character","category-labor-or-slavery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1012"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1013,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1012\/revisions\/1013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.vassar.edu\/engl177\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}