"Dry Cistern" - On Bartleby The Scriven.

Essay by EssaySwap ContributorHigh School, 11th grade February 2008

download word file, 8 pages 0.0

Downloaded 13 times

"The Dry Cistern" From 1870 to 1900, the United States became the world's foremost industrial nation. Overall, the nation experienced a stunning explosion in the scale of industry and in the pace of production. By the turn of the century, industrialization had transformed commerce, business organization, the environment, the workplace, the home, and everyday life. Herman Melville depicts the mechanization, dehumanization, and repetition of employment in Industrial America in his short story, "Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street." The personality of the characters, the description of the type of labor performed, and the use of walls within the setting display the removal of humanity from the workplace during this era.

More than three-quarters of the labor force worked in agriculture in 1790. During the nineteenth century, however, Americans soon enjoyed striking "success" in mechanization. Melville's description of the labor performed at the office that employed Nippers, Turkey, and Bartleby were employed displays the autonomy and monotony of employment during the Industrial Era.

The rather erratic nature of Nippers and Turkey, whose "...fits relieved each other like guards" puts forth the ideal of consistency. Nippers and Turkey lived lives outside their monotonous jobs. Both men drank, which revealed a certain level of discontent. Alcohol served as an escape. The narrator mentioned that he "always deemed him (Nippers) the victim of two evil powers- ambition and indigestion." Nippers' ambition granted him activities outside of copying; he "occasionally did a little business at the Justices' courts." Notice that the narrator deemed ambition as evil. Furthermore, Nippers' indigestion is linked to "a continual discontent with the height of the table where he worked." This discontent of "not knowing what he wanted" is also considered evil. Turkey's downfall was his energetic emotion. In the morning Turkey sported "a fine florid hue"...