From Bartleby the Scrivener (1856)

2009 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman Melville
Keyword(s):  
Bartleby The Scrivener

At the period just preceding the advent of Bartleby, I had two persons as copyists in my employment, and a promising lad as an office-boy. First, Turkey; second, Nippers; third, Ginger Nut. These may seem names, the like of which are not usually found in...

Work and purpose: A return to Sisyphus and Bartleby

2021 ◽  
pp. 1354067X2110474
Author(s):  
Pedro F Bendassolli
Keyword(s):  
Herman Melville ◽  
Cultural Psychology ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Meaning Of Work ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Classical Literature ◽  
Work Relationship ◽  
Bartleby The Scrivener ◽  
Oriented Activity ◽  
The Relationship

Work is a semiotically oriented activity, that is, when working, individuals anticipate aspects of their activity using a network of signs and meanings and project themselves in time with the aim to achieve certain goals. This study proposes a discussion on the relationship between purpose and work and distinguishes purpose as objective, related to actions aimed at goals, and purpose as a glimpse or a hyper-generalized sign. Both of these purposes are related to other dimensions of an individual’s relationship, with their work that are not contained in their actions aimed at situated ends. From a methodological viewpoint, the arguments are developed based on the analysis of two fictional characters, inspired by the cultural psychology of semiotic orientation: Sisyphus, extracted from classical literature, and Bartleby, the scrivener of the novel of the same name written by Herman Melville. Based on this analysis, we propose considering the purpose–work relationship on two axes: (1) what articulates sense-meaning in the process of meaning-making, and (2) the axis of action potency and its relationship with the concepts of emptiness and contingency based on a human agent’s experiences in culture. The paper aims to contribute both to the cultural psychology of semiotic orientation and to the literature on the meaning of work.

scholarly journals Office Setting as Organizational Structure in “Bartleby the Scrivener”

SAGE Open ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 215824401769043
Author(s):  
Lori Duin Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Organizational Structure ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Institutional Ethnography ◽  
Interpersonal Dynamics ◽  
Office Setting ◽  
Linguistic Markers ◽  
The Social ◽  
Bartleby The Scrivener ◽  
A Site

This article uses a methodology from the social sciences known as institutional ethnography to analyze the office setting in Herman Melville’s short story “Bartleby the Scrivener” as a site of social organization. This approach contributes to an understanding of how that office came to adopt specific structures as crucial to its functioning and how, as a consequence of those structures, individuals’ roles within the organization’s hierarchies became constituted. As fieldwork occurs inside of organizations, institutional ethnography also provides a tool for identifying and evaluating linguistic markers for an individual’s placement within a larger organizational structure. This approach to the story seems particularly useful for understanding the interpersonal dynamics at the heart of “Bartleby.” At the same time, it provides a method for identifying the larger institutional process at work in Melville’s story, one that contributes to the reproduction of a system of social relations in the workplace that requires subordination and compliance to insure its success.

scholarly journals I would prefer not to turn the page: Reading and Writing in the Unlimited Digital Space

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 135-148
Author(s):  
Ana Sabino
Keyword(s):  
Herman Melville ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Reading Practices ◽  
Reading And Writing ◽  
Infinite Space ◽  
Digital Space ◽  
Digital Edition ◽  
Physical Limit ◽  
Bartleby The Scrivener

The limits of the page have been historically set by the constrictions of the materials on which the text is inscribed. In the digital age, those materials no longer impose a physical limit, and the limits are more bound to what are our established reading practices and conventions. We still need to access the text in finite portions — we cannot process the infinitude of text that the limitless digital space would allow. Hence, notions as window or frame appear to make this infinite space readable — not unlike the ancient practice of reading and writing on a scroll, which contained large texts, but could only be read portion by portion. Nowadays, we no longer simply turn a page and leave it behind; in our perception, it is more like a frame is constantly being repositioned. In order to question this transition and its implications, we will be looking at a paper and a digital edition of Bartleby, the Scrivener by Herman Melville.

scholarly journals Bartleby’s Consensual Dysphoria

2019 ◽  
pp. 191-220
Author(s):  
Robin West
Keyword(s):  
Occupy Wall Street ◽  
Wall Street ◽  
Political Condition ◽  
Fellow Traveler ◽  
Legal Thought ◽  
Bartleby The Scrivener ◽  
Seminal Article

In this essay I seek to understand why many of the 2011 Occupy Wall Street protestors embraced Bartleby, the dysfunctional scrivener of Melville’s Story of Wall Street, as a fellow traveler in their movement. I first situate Bartleby the Scrivener in the context of classical legal thought, expanding on some claims put forward in a seminal article on Bartleby by Brook Thomas in the 1980s. I then argue that Melville’s scrivener suffered from a psychic and political condition I call “consensual dysphoria.” Bartleby suffered from consensual dysphoria in extremis. The OWSers recognized this—thus their otherwise inexplicable empathic bond with him. Consensual dysphoria, as depicted by Melville and as suffered by Bartleby, I will urge, is a part of the debilitating legacy of classical legal thought that persists today, and in an even more developed and exaggerated form.

scholarly journals Resistance to ideologies: A study of Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener”

1970 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 223-232
Author(s):  
Bal Bahadur Thapa
Keyword(s):  
Bartleby The Scrivener

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/bodhi.v4i1.5822 Bodhi 2010 4(1): 223-232

The De-American Bartleby

2019 ◽  
pp. 177-194
Author(s):  
Kara Keeling
Keyword(s):  
Bartleby The Scrivener

This section considers how Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” challenges the authority and coherence of the American project.

The Sonic Bartleby

2019 ◽  
pp. 107-116
Author(s):  
Kara Keeling
Keyword(s):  
Language And Communication ◽  
Bartleby The Scrivener

Basing the discussion on Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener,” this section focuses on the rising significance of sound in the digital regime of the image and what it might do to the norms and standards of language and communication.

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