Communism versus Capitalism: changing notions of the American work ethic in Herman Melville’s “Bartleby the Scrivener” and David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross.

American life is intertwined with a strong work ethic1. On those shores, to work is

to be somebody; you are largely defined by your occupation. If you do not work, it is as

though your identity is not secure. This attitude relates back to the colonisation of the

United States. The Puritans, when they landed in New England, believed simply that if you

worked hard, you would succeed2. Pioneers on the frontiers also laid claim to that kind of

mantra, as they fought to clear land and move west to seek their fortunes. Indeed,

throughout America’s history, immigrants have enriched the working population; during

the height of industrialisation in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, foreign workers

were key parts of factories and plants3. The American work ethic is characterised by

determination and strength (be it physical or mental) inspired by the desire to achieve the

American Dream4.

Drawing on this, the protagonist in Melville’s Bartleby the Scrivener is an anomaly

in terms of his attitude towards work; he is a rebellious figure. He is not interested in the

promises of the so-called land of opportunity and plenty. At the beginning of the text, he is

a downtrodden worker and a victim of capitalism, copying night and day to reproduce a

great number of scripts. However, he soon mounts a protest and reclaims his right to

individuality and choice; projecting lines of strong political thought that manifest

themselves in his actions. In this essay, his character will be read as an upholder of socialist

1 H. Applebaum, The American Work Ethic and the Changing Work Force: An Historical Perspective (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), p. x.2 H. Applebaum, The American Work Ethic and the Changing Work Force: An Historical Perspective, p. xi.3 H. Applebaum, The American Work Ethic and the Changing Work Force: An Historical Perspective, p. xi.4 In this essay, the American Dream will refer to the ability to achieve prosperity through hard work, despite class structure.

values, derived from thinkers like Karl Marx5, and one who has faith in the practice of

peaceful civil disobedience, as demarcated by Thoreau6. These values are interconnected to

form Bartleby’s essential belief system; throughout the essay, basic Marxist concepts will

be discussed in relation to the text, while civil disobedience will be linked with socialism in

the second section.

To offer a seedy contrast to a man with such powerful beliefs, Roma from David

Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross will be examined. Consequent to Roma’s particular brand of

the modern American work ethic, he is a representative of the capitalist system, the winners

thriving over the losers. Marx believed in stages of organisation in civilisation7 and that

socialism would eventually overcome capitalism in the same way as the feudal system had

been conquered. The flaws of contemporary capitalism are exposed by Roma’s shady

business practices; as a result, a Marxist critique of Roma’s working life will be offered in

this essay, as though put forward by a modern Bartleby. To provide focus for this

exploration of American working life, aspects of the texts can be investigated, such as:

How do the characters feel about their respective jobs and duties? What effect do their jobs

have on their humanity? How do their wages affect their attitude towards work? What does

their productivity say about their thoughts in relation to their employment? How does

language reveal their thoughts relating to their jobs? What form do their working

relationships take? And finally, do they aspire to the American Dream?

5 In fact, Melville wrote this short story (1853) five years after The Communist Manifesto (1848) was published.6 According to E. Oliver, Melville had every chance to be knowledgeable about Thoreau’s work as a result of his intimacy with Hawthorne. A book called Aesthetic Papers, edited by Hawthorne’s sister-in-law, contained Thoreau’s essay, “Resistance to Civil Government” (1849); if he did not himself have a copy of it, he would have been familiar with it because of its presence in the Hawthorne household – E. S. Oliver, “A Second Look at Bartleby”, College English, May 1945, p. 433.7 K. Marx, “The German Ideology”, Literary Theory: An Anthology, ed. J. Rivkin & M. Ryan (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004), p. 654-656.

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Firstly, the nature of the characters’ occupations must be dealt with; in order to

appraise their attitudes towards work, their status as workers and the extent of their daily

duties should be examined. Bartleby can be interpreted as a member of the landless

proletariat, who is locked in class struggle with his property-owning boss, who is part of the

bourgeoisie. At the beginning of the short story he has not begun his unique programme of

antagonism and so is a casualty of this class struggle. As the new scrivener, he copies a

great number of papers but is clearly dissatisfied with his job; he does not write in a

cheerful way, but ‘silently, palely, mechanically.’8 In this position, he is alienated by the

repetitiveness of his tasks, essentially forming part of a Wall Street factory line. He has no

relationship with what he is writing, like the factory workers who only have contact with

one part of a whole product. His boss merely sees him as useful body parts and not as a

whole man, as the factory bosses see workers as ‘hands’9; he is a pair of eyes, ears and a

writing hand: ‘I resolved to assign Bartleby a corner by the folding doors, but on my side of

them, so as to have […him] within easy call, in case any trifling thing was to be done.’10 In

this way, he is dehumanised by his occupation.

In contrast, Roma embodies the modern American work ethic of the cut-throat sales

world. He fully buys into the ideology of the American Dream and the tenets of capitalism

such as private property, the free market and self-interest11; in fact, his position as a real

estate agent keeps the private property sector afloat. In the 1980s, Roma would have been

seen as part of the petty-bourgeoisie, the upwardly mobile lower middle-class. However,

speaking about American business life, the playwright, Mamet, remarks:

8 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, ed. J. Reidhead (London: W. W. Norton & Co. Ltd., 2007), p. 2368.9 P. Barry, Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), p. 157.10 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2368.11 Nicholas V. Gianaris, Modern Capitalism: Privatization, Employee Ownership, and Industrial Democracy (Westport: Praeger Publishing, 1996), p. 1.

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There’s really no difference between the lumpenproletariat and stockbrokers and

corporate lawyers who are the lackeys of business…Part of the American myth is

that a difference exists, that at a certain point viciousness becomes laudable.12

Essentially, it is the capitalist system that Roma embraces that has transformed him into a

money-hungry individual. He is a swindler, selling people useless land they cannot afford

so as to amass personal fortune. Although he makes more money than Bartleby, he can be

placed in a lower social bracket than the scrivener because he is essentially a man without

ethics, a representative of today’s white-collar mob, or lumpenproletariat. In the third scene

of act one, he uses his shady business skills on James Lingk, for whom Roma embodies

everything he admires:

I’m glad to meet you, James. [Pause.] I want to show you something. [Pause.] …

What is that? Florida. Glengarry Highlands. Florida. “Florida. Bullshit.” And maybe

that’s true; and that’s what I said: but look here: what is this? This is a piece of land.

Listen to what I’m going to tell you now.13

Unlike Bartleby, he does not rail against his occupation. In fact, he seems to delight

in it; all he desires is to be the best in the salesroom, and win the Cadillac. Roma is also

dehumanised by employment, but not in the same way as the scrivener as he is more

actively responsible in the process. With every sale, it seems that Roma slips further into

savagery and primal instincts, losing the developed part of the self concerned with justice

and liberty. In this way, he is selling himself to the company. The high-minded ideals of

capitalism and the Amendments of the constitution are violated by Roma in exploiting his

fellow man. He slips into the murky waters of the modern capitalist system, taking away

12 Quoted in Richard Gottlieb, “The Engine that Drives Playwright David Mamet”, New York Times, 15 Jan 1978, section 2, p. 1. From Dennis Carroll, David Mamet (London: Macmillan Publishers Ltd., 1987), p.50. 13 D. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. E, ed. J. Reidhead (London: W. W. Norton & Co. Ltd., 2007), p. 3055.

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people’s private property to increase his own. In this way, Roma, whose worth is subtly

undermined by his job, in turn dehumanises his customers14. Lingk is merely seen as a

contract, a way to get Roma “over the fucking top”15 in order to possess a new car.

Roma believes he is a free agent, but can be seen as merely a tool of the capitalist

process. In the same way, they have the appearance of autonomy in their office, with

Williamson as an office manager, handing out their leads; they can arrange and choose to

go out on their ‘sits’. However, Mitch and Murray and the men downtown are running the

show16. In this way, according to left wing thought, he can be seen as a victim of

interpellation17.

The way in which Bartleby and Roma are compensated for their time will be dealt

with presently. According to Marx, workers such as Bartleby sell their labour-power and

not actual labour18. He is significantly underpaid for the job he does; he is merely given

‘four cents a folio (one hundred words)’19. Like the factory worker, whose boss sells their

product for an inflated price, the difference between the cost of the services and what the

lawyer charges his customers is the real cost of their labour20. Bartleby’s boss can charge a

great deal for his services and have many customers because of the work of his copyists.

However, the proletariat scriveners do not obtain a share of the commodity produced21;

their labour-power has already been paid for22, and so the gap between wages and the

14 B. Nightingale, “Glengarry Glen Ross”, The Cambridge Companion to Glengarry Glen Ross, ed. C. Bigsby (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 93.15 D. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. E, p. 3056.16 Roma believes he is an autonomous individual, making his own choices. However, his actions are unconsciously controlled by ideology. Ideology controls through processes of naturalisation, historicisation and eternilisation. (The process can also be called interpellation). J. Lye, “Ideology: A Brief Guide”, http://www.brocku.ca/english/jlye/ideology.html17 L. Althusser, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses”, Literary Theory: An Anthology, ed. J. Rivkin & M. Ryan (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2004), p. 701.18 K. Marx, “Wage Labor and Capital”, Literary Theory: An Anthology, ed. J. Rivkin & M. Ryan, p. 659.19 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2373.20 J Rivkin & M. Ryan, “Introduction to “Wage Labor and Capital””, Literary Theory: An Anthology, p. 659.21 K. Marx, “Wage Labor and Capital”, Literary Theory: An Anthology, ed. J. Rivkin & M. Ryan, p. 660.22 K. Marx, “Wage Labor and Capital”, Literary Theory: An Anthology, ed. J. Rivkin & M. Ryan, p. 660.

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charge for services functions as the lawyer’s profit; it is through the enslavement of the

proletariat that all wealth is produced23. Bartleby soon rejects this notion of the low

exchange-value24 of his labour-power, refusing to work altogether. He refuses to engage in

this continual exchange of labour-power for other commodities25, such as food and housing;

instead, he resides in the office, eating only a small number of ginger-nut cakes for

sustenance.

In contrast, Roma is not paid in relation to the amount of labour involved; the

salesmen work for commission rather than a salary. Therefore, the money earned does not

relate back to Marx’s formula that labour-power used by the company times a certain ratio

equals the money earned26. The modern capitalist system allows Roma to obtain large

amounts of commission in a short space of time, unlike the poorly paid copyist. As a result

of Roma’s twenty-four hour work commitment, he earns ‘six thousand dollars’27 during one

drunken night with Lingk. Consequently, he is generally satisfied with his position and a

spirit of complacency is fostered within the salesman. However, the example of Levene’s

sale of eight units of Mountain View property shows that the salesmen are being duped by

the capitalist system, just like Bartleby. Levene has earned eighty-two thousand dollars for

the company and only “twelve grand in commission”28. If the value of the almost useless

land and overheads are detracted from the remaining seventy thousand, the company stands

to make forty thousand on the sale.

23 http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pdf/spe(1975).pdf24 K. Marx, “Wage Labor and Capital”, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch02.htm Accessed 21 March 2008.25 K. Marx, “Wage Labor and Capital”, http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/wage-labour/ch02.htm Accessed 21 March 2008.26 K. Marx, “Wage Labor and Capital”, Literary Theory: An Anthology, ed. J. Rivkin & M. Ryan, p. 659.27 D. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. E, p. 3070.28 D. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. E, p. 3059.

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Their comparative productivity is a result their opposing views of wages and their

relative positions within the system. Bartleby’s output (or lack of it) represents his level of

dissention with capitalism, while Roma’s efficiency relates simply to his desire for money.

In this way, Bartleby’s production is largely associated with rebellion. The scrivener breaks

free from the influence of capitalist ideology29 and the myth of the American Dream. Due

to his socialist beliefs, Bartleby does not intend to merely comprehend the world; he means

to change it30. A contrast is created by Roma, who wishes to understand the everyday so he

can take advantage of the wealth of individuals. When Bartleby’s employer calls to him

check a document he expects ‘instant compliance’31. However, he does not obtain what he

desires from his clerk. Bartleby refuses to become just a pair of eyes to the lawyer, taking

himself out of the realm of servitude and degradation, placing himself back into the realm

of personal humanity. As an individual, he uses his preference to determine the nature of

his duties in the office.

Thus begins his passive resistance. “I would prefer not to”32 becomes a stand for the

exploited nineteenth century worker. In Marxist thought, progress can only be achieved

through class struggle; Bartleby engages himself in battle against the Wall Street

bourgeoisie. The lawyer cannot dismiss him because he embodies a ‘leanly composed’33

form of resistance, rather than that fuelled by anger or hatred. There is an ethereal form of

righteousness associated with Bartleby; the narrator remarks that:

29 J. Lye, “Ideology: A Brief Guide”, http://www.brocku.ca/english/jlye/ideology.html30 P. Barry, Beginning Theory: An Introduction to Literary and Cultural Theory, p. 157.31 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2369.32 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2369.33 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2369.

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Had there been the least uneasiness, anger… in his manner; in other words, had

there been anything ordinarily human about him, doubtless I should have violently

dismissed him from the premises.34

This is where Marxist thought and Thoreau’s belief in civil disobedience intersect.

According to Thoreau:

The State never intentionally confronts a man’s sense, intellectual or moral, but only

his body, his senses. It is not armed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior

physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion.

Let us see who is the strongest.35

His employer, with his Protestant ethics, does not wish to use force in his dealings with

Bartleby; he will not ‘thrust such a helpless creature out of [his] door’36. In this appraisal,

he significantly underestimates Bartleby and is compelled to accept his protest as a result.

He exempts the scrivener from ‘examining the work done by him’ and an ‘errand of any

sort’37. However, Bartleby’s quest for equality does not end there.

Eventually, his heightened productivity, blindly copying sheets, impairs the sight of

the scrivener; this can be interpreted as the crippling effect such a disjointed and repetitive

job has on the body and on the mind. As a result, he engages in ‘dead-wall revery’38 as a

form of deep mental exchange. This time of contemplation allows him strength to free

himself from his Wall Street bondage. At his employer’s provocation, he declares: “I have

given up copying”39. He will no longer acquiesce to be a cog in the wheel of the capitalist

workforce. In this act, Bartleby is transformed from a highly productive scrivener to office

34 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2369.35 W. McElroy, “Henry Thoreau and ‘Civil Disobedience’”, http://thoreau.eserver.org/wendy.html Accessed 21 March 2008.36 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2383.37 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2373.38 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2378.39 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2378.

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philosopher and squatter. His presence itself, becoming ‘still more of a fixture than

before’40, becomes an act of civil disobedience. He will not be cowed by threats, bribes or

niceties from his employer. Material possessions are not any incentive to him, unlike

Roma:

“I owe you some twelve dollars on account; here are thirty-two; the odd twenty are

yours – will you take it?” and I handed the bills towards him.

But he made no motion.41

As previously stated, Roma’s productivity is linked with his underhanded pursuit of

the American Dream; this belief in the Dream represents the conventional inscribed values,

or hegemony42, that control a capitalist workforce. His high status in the office is related to

his dog-eat-dog style of operation. Company regulations are merely complied with by the

usually dominant Roma so that he can earn money with relative ease. He is the leader on

the ‘Cadillac board’43 and at the start of the play, has racked up nearly enough sales to

become the owner of that expensive new car. As discussed, in his determination he

succeeds in charming both the Lingks, providing him with his victory. However, the real

mark of his salesmanship and strength of mind is conveyed when James Lingk arrives to

cancel the deal; he will not allow his productivity to go into decline. He has clearly devoted

a great deal of time to honing his sales tactics and interpersonal skills in order to increase

his efficiency; Roma is sociopathic in his methods, telling his customers what they want to

hear.

He attempts to allay the fears of the customer through role-play; Levene is cast as a

D. Ray Morton, a head honcho at American Express, who has bought “five waterfront

40 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2378.41 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2379.42 A. Gramsci, “Hegemony”, Literary Theory: An Anthology, ed. J. Rivkin & M. Ryan, p. 673.43 D. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. E, p. 3059.

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Glengarry Farms.”44 Intentionally, he aligns Lingk with this supposedly important and

masculine business man, ready to conquer Florida, playing on Lingk’s insecurities and

desires. This improvised charade seems second nature to slippery Roma. Once again, he

succeeds in bullying, bamboozling and eventually befriending Lingk:

ROMA: The “deal,” forget the deal. Forget the deal, you’ve got something on your

mind, Jim, what is it?

LINGK [rising]: I can’t talk to you, you met my wife, I… [Pause.]

ROMA: What? [Pause.] What? [Pause.] What, Jim: I tell you what, let’s go get out

of here…let’s go get a drink.45

Roma does not care for this man; he merely wants to ensure his slice of the pie, so to speak.

Seemingly, he targets these weak-willed individuals, as a shark would his prey. In contrast

to Bartleby whose determination is associated with ethics, Roma is determined in relation

to his own dubious business practices. High productivity merely lines his pocket, and earns

capital for his bosses, while it physically and mentally impairs the scrivener.

Their attitudes to their respective jobs are not only represented by their efficiency,

but by the language they use in the workplace, in relation to work. The state of the

characters’ working relationships is also suggested by the way in which they speak and act.

Bartleby’s passive but effective resistance to the American work ethic is revealed by the

way he expresses himself. His line of thought aligns with Thoreau’s in that he was ‘not

born to be forced.’46 As a result, his campaign for change is centred on the equality of all

men; a scrivener can lay claim to rights and preferences in the same way as a lawyer. As

has already been discussed, Bartleby’s dissent with his mode of employment increases until

44 D. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. E, p. 3064.45 D. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. E, p. 3069.46 W. McElroy, “Henry Thoreau and ‘Civil Disobedience’”, http://thoreau.eserver.org/wendy.html Accessed 21 March 2008.

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he officially renounces all the duties of a scrivener. Furthermore, he takes possession of his

own work space; upon the lawyer and Turkey’s intrusion, he declares that he “would prefer

to be left alone here”47. In this way, Bartleby refutes the notion of private ownership of

property, as he does by the act of living in the lawyer’s chambers, and later by squatting in

the building. The scrivener not only denies his boss the right to enter his personal office

space48, but through his use of careful speech he also refuses the lawyer’s entrance into his

private mental space; he is not allowed access to Bartleby’s personal history: “At present I

prefer to give no answer”49.

The great influence of his passive resistance is demonstrated by the fact that

Bartleby’s distinct manner of speaking is mirrored by the men in the office. Turkey, in

attempting to find a solution for Bartleby’s problem suggests that “if he would prefer to

take a quart of good ale every day, it would do much towards mending him …”50 Even the

lawyer, who has begun to detest the word ‘had got into the way of involuntarily using this

word “prefer” …’51 However, it is not merely Bartleby’s language that conveys his

message, but also his silence. After he frees himself from the shackles of the capitalist life,

he ‘silently retire[s] into his hermitage’52 at the mention of work. When his boss announces

his plans to move premises, informing him that his services are no longer needed, ‘he made

no reply’.53 It is this very passive but firm spoken language and body language that

frightens the lawyer into action; after two failed attempts to rid himself of the socialist

spectre, he is forced to move to different chambers, handing over his offices to Bartleby.

47 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2376.48 The lawyer arrives one morning to his office, but Bartleby will not allow him to enter; he must go for a walk around the block before the Scrivener lets him inside.49 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2376.50 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2377.51 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2377.52 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2381.53 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2383.

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Despite threats that Bartleby “must do something, or something must be done to [him]”54,

he is adamant that he will not be further employed; he has exempted himself from the

commercial rat-race. Again, the effectiveness of the scrivener’s protest is confirmed, this

time by a lawyer from the building Bartleby’s boss has vacated: “Everybody is concerned;

clients are leaving the offices; some fears are entertained of a mob…”55 The vulnerability of

the capitalist regime is highlighted by the chaos that one man engaged in quiet social

demonstration can inspire.

In contrast to the scrivener’s quiet and politically inclined attitude, the language that

Roma uses in the working world is aggressive and manipulative. His dealings with

customers are exemplified by his experience with Lingk; he speaks authoritatively but

nonsensically: “…all train compartments smell vaguely of shit. It gets so you don’t mind it.

That’s the worst thing that I can confess.”56 In comparison to Bartleby’s very sparse

interactions, Roma practically monologues for several minutes at a time, involved in his

own rhetoric. Unlike the scrivener, he is never silent. He talks at customers like Lingk and

subliminally suggests what they desire in order to make his sales pitch; he makes great use

of the dramatic pause in order to have a heightened effect on Lingk’s psyche:

“There are these properties I’d like for you to see.” What does it mean? What you

want it to mean. [Pause.] Money? [Pause.] If that’s what it signifies to you.

Security? [Pause.] Comfort? [Pause.]57

His smooth interactions with customers are juxtaposed by his often vicious dealings

with his co-workers. These confrontations are an intrinsic part of the modern capitalist

business realm. Unlike Bartleby, who is sedate around his boss and co-workers, Roma is

54 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2385.55 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2384.56 D. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. E, p. 3054.57 D. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. E, p. 3055.

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subject to fits of rage. There is nothing passive in his exchanges with the office manager,

Williamson, when the deal with Lingk is lost. The number of expletives used increases due

to confrontation and his voice is full of spite and hatred:

You just cost me six thousand dollars. [Pause.] […] And one Cadillac. That’s right.

[…] What are you going to do about it, asshole. You fucking shit. Where did you

learn your trade. You stupid fucking cunt. You idiot. Whoever told you you could

work with men?58

There is a process of humiliation to which Roma subjects Williamson. Firstly, his mistake

is brazenly invoked, as Roma highlights his personal loss at the hands of Williamson; his

qualifications are questioned; he is subsequently dehumanised by Roma as he engages in

the act of rudely renaming Williamson; finally, he is emasculated. The almost inhuman

element of the real estate market is conveyed by Roma’s dramatic reaction. However,

Williamson’s act is a mere oversight in comparison to the wrong Bartleby accuses his ex-

employer of; he blames the lawyer for his imprisonment. The lawyer is not met with any

act or word of aggression, Bartleby merely invokes his right to silence once more: “I know

you […] and I want nothing to say to you.”59

Bartleby’s attitude to work certainly does not typify that of an American in the mid-

nineteenth century. In resisting employment, he questions the basic principles upon which

the nation was founded. However, is it any wonder that the pioneering spirit has been lost

in Bartleby? The steady way of life of the pioneer and the farmer was being replaced by

that of the pressurised industrial worker60. As one of these workers, Bartleby is not deluded

enough to lay claim to the American Dream, recognising the stationary nature of his

58 D. Mamet, Glengarry Glen Ross, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. E, p. 3070.59 H. Melville, “Bartleby the Scrivener”, The Norton Anthology of American Literature, vol. B, p. 2386.60 H. Applebaum, The American Work Ethic and the Changing Work Force: An Historical Perspective, p. 63.

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occupation. In this way, Bartleby’s low status and hassled productivity, along with the

dehumanising aspect of his work foretell his socialist rebellion. His protest works against

the tropes of capitalism to which he will never lay claim, such as private property and

wealth. It is the abundance of this private wealth that the white-collared gangster, Roma,

wishes to exploit; the work ethic of the 1980s is embodied by him. Ironically, he portrays

himself as a member of a “dying breed” of pioneer in a world full of “clock watchers” and

“bureaucrats” 61. He imagines himself to be a seeker of adventure and unexplored territory,

as he pursues the American Dream. However, it is because of corrupt businesses such as

his real estate office that the ideals of the pioneers and their capitalist system have been

replaced by ruthless competitiveness. Modern capitalism, with business practices like those

demonstrated by Roma, does nothing to foster a sense of community, or shared hope in the

United States. In fact, Bartleby’s form of socialism does more to that end. In this way,

capitalism and the American work ethic are problematised by both “Bartleby the Scrivener”

and Glengarry Glen Ross. One could ask: where does the future of the pioneering spirit and

the American Dream lie? Can it be in either the idealistic communist or merciless capitalist

– left wing or right? Or is the American Dream truly a myth?

Word count: 3, 589.

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