리듬, 도주, 소진 - 「필경사 바틀비」와 19세기 뉴욕 사무노동자

Abstract

Utilizing Henry Lefebvres notion of a-rythmie in Éléments de rhythmanalyse, this article analyzes the way Bartleby disturbs the rhythms of labor in the office through his stillness. Bartleby is a nomad of nineteenth-century New York in Deleuze-Guattarian sense; he creates a line of flight to escape from the endlessly boring and exhausting job that he has to endure as a copyist. His physical symptoms of fatigue and the line of flight that he creates are worth investigating because they illuminate what could happen to a clerk in the context of mass education, the shift from the apprenticeship system to the wage labor system, and of the narrow potential for upward mobility. This article in the end aims to argue that Bartlebys flight may be considered as both escape and resistance.