"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall-street"

["Eric Nilsson" <enilsson@xxxxxxxxx>]

A movie version of H. Melville's short story, Bartleby the Scrivener, will
appear this weekend. The story appears online at
http://www.bartleby.com/129/ and other places.

The story involves an employee who refuses to work and who refuses to be
fired. His employer is not entirely sure what to do about this situation.
Although the movie apparently plays up the comic aspects of this situation,
the Melville short story, as is typical for things written by Melville, has
many layers(as does Shrek--inside comment for those with children): tragic,
comic, and absurd at many different levels.

The amazing thing about this story is that it was written in the 1850s as
capitalism was started to spread rapidly in the US. Most readers in the
1850s would have shared with Melville a concern with the spreading
capital-labor relationship. Perhaps it's a good sign that now in 2002
movie-makers think that such a short-story would be of interest to the
public today.

For what it is worth, over the past few years my students have become
increasingly discontent with the world of work they will face (if they are
lucky!) after graduation.

Melville is, of course, the greatest American writer.

Eric


Eric Nilsson
Economics
CSUSB