A Compare-Contrast Evaluation of "Bartleby the Scrivener" and "Office Space".
The cinematic comedy "Office Space" created by the mind of Mike Judge is arguably an accurate present-day rendition of "Bartleby the Scrivener" by Herman Melville. Although 150 years passed between the creation of the classic short story and the film, they both possess similarities in plot, theme, and character development. Each story is about work that crushes the spirit. They explain that office cubicles are cells, supervisors are the wardens, and the management theory is skewed, corrupt, and completely unappealing to the common employee. Whether a carbon copy of Melville's story was Judge's intention or not; the two stories possess strong comparisons and similarities which mock the stale, numbing existence of American office life.
The protagonists in each circumstance represent similar beliefs, only the setting of the stories drastically vary. The movie stars Ron Livingston as Peter Gibbons, a discontented cubicle jockey at a nondescript computer firm whose ears ring at night with the sounds of the office and who spends his Friday afternoons dodging boss after boss to avoid mandates of weekend overtime. "Bartleby the Scrivener" centers on a scrivener, or a copyist, for a law firm on Wall Street. The story is narrated by the lawyer, the man who employs Bartleby and later learns that Bartleby's work habits are in a constant state of decline much like those of Peter Gibbons.
As "Office Space" opens, Peter is being reminded by his smarmy supervisor that all reports now carry a cover sheet. "Yes, I know," he says. "I forgot. It was a silly mistake. It won't happen again." Before long another manager reminds him about the cover sheets. "Yes, I know," he says. Then another manager. And another. Logic suggests that when more than one supervisor conveys the same trivial information, their jobs overlap, which results in a very destructive work atmosphere.
In this form of alienation, Marx displays that by constant production, the producer becomes a slave to his own product. ... The employees work in cubicles, making face-to-face interaction a very infrequent occurrence. Workers are forced into the honeycomb-like structure of their cubicles to work in solitary from 9-5 every day. ...
The Apodyterium was the primary entry to the public baths, usually unheated, and composed of a large changing room with cubicles or shelves where citizens could store clothing and other belongings while bathing. Slaves hired at the baths or privately owned would look after the belongings while the citizens enjoyed the baths. One Roman schoolbook quotes a wealthy young Roman schoolboy of the Colloquia who, upon entering the baths, instructs his accompanying slave, "Do not fall asleep, on account of the thieves ". Wealthy Romans brought multiple slaves along, as parading your slaves at the baths...
It's the year 2070, and Anderson works in a cubicle, manning a computer and doing a little hacking on the side. ... The machines in The Matrix are like the prince that Machiavelli presents in "Qualities of the Prince", that try to keep people in control by giving them overall happiness in surreal world, while in reality they are slaves born with a purpose of a battery. ... It's the idea of being a slave and being born to it. ...