- Explain how Melvilles short story, Bartleby, The Scrivener, is a short story that provides a series of social commentaries on American society, in the mid-19th century, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, when Wall Street culture and corporatism were both ascending in economic power and social prestige. For this prompt, you might then explore how Melville’s story comments upon the limits of Christian Charity in the context of Wall Street culture. Or similarly, you might focus on Bartleby and his enigmatic personality as a product of industrialized labor and the problem of wage work. Furthermore, you might focus on the lawyer and the dynamic the story traces between the lawyer and all his employees as a critical meditation on the self-interested nature of the wage system (boss/employee). Finally, you might make an argument about how the story dramatizes the psychological and sociological reality of what Karl Marx called “alienation” in his essay “The Estrangement of Labor.” You should also feel free to reference John Winthrops sermon, A Model of Christian Charity, as a comparative text to think about popular definitions of Christian charity, if doing so is helpful to your argument.
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