“Panopticism”, by Michel Foucault, and “Bartleby, The Scrivener”, by Herman Melville, both demonstrate the effects of power o an individual or group. Foucault is a philosophical author who wrote a story about a hierarchal system of power. He uses the metaphor of a tower to demonstrate this, where each individual is always able to be observed but they are unable to see anyone outside of their cell. An individual’s discipline is constantly tested. If they don’t accomplish the assignments given to them, someone observing them will know. The idea is that the idea of being observed at any given moment creates self-discipline. It is essential for those being observed to find it within themselves to accomplish the goal put before them. If they are presented with hundreds of papers to copy by hand, they are less likely to slack off and become distracted if they know they are being observed. While “Bartleby, The Scrivener” may appear to be a story about a lawyer and his employees, it truly shows Foucault’s philosophy in an easily recognizable situation, but also includes the very rebellion from this exact system.

Foucault’s Philosophy is about control. But to understand control it is critical to understand who falls where on the hierarchal scale. The individual in power represents the ever watching eye that uses other people to achieve a goal. This sense of control that they have over the people below them may or may not be physically constraining. In “Bartleby, The Scrivener” the lawyer acts as a boss over his scriveners. While they are assigned specific work areas, this is not where the control comes from for the narrator. Each employee in the story has pros and cons that affect their individual efficiency. The lawyer uses his power to abuse each of his worker’s strengths in order to achieve his goal or making money. For example, the narrator describes one of his scrivener’s work efficiency after lunch hours, “I have known in the course of my life, not the least among which was the fact, that exactly when Turkey displayed his fullest beams from his red and radiant countenance, just then, too, as that critical moment, began the daily period when I considered his business capacities as seriously disturbed for the remainder of the twenty-four hours.” (Melville 474). Essentially, the narrator describes Turkey’s efficiency as a worker to be at its highest before lunch hours. The author abuses this constant discipline from Turkey and gives the most important documents to handle in the early hours of the day. The same concept is applied to another employee of the lawyer, Nippers. He is a young man who is most efficient in the later hours of the day when he is fully awake and prepared to work (Melville 474). It is easy to see now why the narrator gives all important documents to him later in the day where he will work to his full potential. The narrator uses his position of power to create a system that works to its full potential, regardless of if the workers realize this or not. Foucault describes how this control is effective in the workplace in “Panopticism” when he says, “If they are workers there is no disorder, no theft, no coalitions, none of the distractions that slow down rate of work.” (455). This is Foucault’s way of describing how discipline can be abused in a real world situation to achieve an end goal. This is perhaps best described by Eric Burns, he says “Foucault charts the emergence of a new disciplinary strategy of punishment whose effect, if not intent, is to reach into the interior to correct his soul” (Burns 3358). This is another way of saying that Foucault’s plan is to correct the individual from within. This means that disciplinary action works best when the individual corrects themselves, not when an outside force is bringing it upon them.

In the eyes of Foucault, the people under observation only have value to the observer based on his or her ability to complete a goal. If an individual does not feel the subconscious pressure of being observed at all times, there is no reason for them to work. The very distractions that this system is trying to avoid would have an effect on each individual’s efficiency. In the “Panopticism” Foucault explains the effectiveness of the system in place when he says, “each is an object of information, never a subject of communication.” (453). In this sense, each individual holds value under observation but only to the observer. The situation he describes is solitary confinement in a building filled with hundreds of other people doing the same work. The essential part to this system is that each individual never comes in contact with each other. All they know is what they are assigned to do. That is why they are never a subject of communication, but instead observed for information. The extent to their activities is the work given to them and a bright light shining through his or her prison-cell like containment that allows them to be seen at all times, but never see outside themselves. The light in this sense acts as the omnipresent observer. Unlike “Bartleby, The Scrivener” where a human presence is the source of power. The light provides the same effectiveness and is a metaphorical aspect of power.

The narrator in “Bartleby, The Scrivener” makes it clear that his only goal is to accomplish a personal goal of acquiring as much money as possible. In his eyes, the work of his employees is really just a means to justify an end. His philosophy is, if they accomplish his goal to make him money, they will be compensated for their work as well. He does not care about the abusive system he has in place that was previously described where each individual’s strengths are utilized without their knowledge to create a more efficient system. The important thing to recognize as a reader of “Bartleby, The Scrivener” is that the narrator himself admits his very abuse. The narrator says, “I am a man who from his youth upwards, has been filled with the profound conviction that the easiest way of life is the best.” (475). In this way, he is saying that he is content with knowing that the system he has created is the way he wants to live and the way he believes is best. In a way, this describes a positive use of Foucault’s “Panopticism”. The description of solitary confinement in a cell with no outside contact seems negative and advantageous to only one side. The narrator in “Bartleby, The Scrivener” Seems to have created a system that uses the same philosophy, but is beneficial in the eyes of both parties. Those being observed, the scriveners, do not feel as though their work is being abused for a greater good. They simply think they are being fairly compensated for the work they do for the Lawyer. Graham Thompson describes the actions of the lawyer in his analysis of the story. He says, “his employees are often little more that means for him to achieve his own mercantile ends.” (Thompson 190). This is just another way of saying that the lawyer uses his power over his workers to achieve his main goal of an easy lifestyle filled with benefits of riches. 

The works of both Foucault and Melville describe the effects of power in a literal and metaphorical sense. The Foucault’s philosophy of power is tested in Melville’s writing. The Scriveners act as the ones whose strengths are abused, while the lawyer is the one who reaps the benefits of their work. On top of this, it is Foucault’s idea of being observed that has an impact on the individual’s discipline.  It is through both of these passages that the ideas of power are tested. Foucault created a philosophy that describes the tendencies of power and discipline, while Melville wrote about it in a way that a reader could easily relate to. It is through their writings that we find value in systematic power, and from there recognize them in our own lives.
