José-Luis Munuera’s Anti-Capitalist Graphic Novel as a Creative Response to Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener”

Daniela Jose Cid Opazo

doi:10.59045/nalans.2024.47

Authors

Daniela Jose Cid Opazo Independent Author https://orcid.org/0009-0002-7565-2284

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.59045/nalans.2024.47

Keywords:

Bartleby the Scrivener, Wall Street, graphic novel, comics and literature, adaptation studies

Abstract

Melville’s Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street (1853) is a short story that offers a multiplicity of readings not only because of the complexity of its main characters but also because of Melville’s imaginary of Wall Street. This paper examines how José-Luis Munuera represents these narrative elements in his graphic novel adaptation Bartleby, der Schreiber (2022). I argue that Munuera’s adaptation has its own textual identity and can be read as a creative, graphic response to Melville’s criticism of nineteenth-century Wall Street. Even though set in a similar period to the 1850s original version, Munuera’s authorial choices invite the reader to reflect on contemporary conceptions of work, duty, and agency in a capitalist present.

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