From Office to Home: Reading Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener" and Kafka's "Metamorphosis" as Texts in Dialogue

Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener" (1856) and Franz Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” (1915) have always shared a peculiar resonance. Comparative analysis of the two texts by scholars like L. Fallon Duncan and Maurice Friedman often demonstrated how both texts highlight human alienation, isolation, and confinement of non-productive entities in a modern, industrialized, and capitalist society. This paper departs from the conventional comparative framework and argues that the two texts are in dialogue with each other. By placing the texts as companion pieces, we will first discuss how, between Bartleby and Samsa, the oeuvre of non-action and non-verbal protest against regimental utilitarian life extends from office into the home. It will then analyze how the tyranny of the clock and time, which primarily governed public and professional life in Bartleby’s world, emerges as a dominating force in Samsa’s domestic existence. The paper will conclude with a brief discussion on various adaptations of both texts, being continually reimagined in newer formats like video games, graphic novels, and VR experiences.