So, I know Thompson's article was a lot about male sexuality, but I found a couple things that I thought were pretty interesting talking about the office as a space. The first was when Thompson was talking about how the office was used as a means of surveillance.
He talks about that scene, where the narrator chooses to place Bartleby behind a screen to "preserve privacy," except for the fact that the narrator can break that barrier by talking, and Bartleby can get up and enter without knocking. I think the whole idea of taking a space and designating certain areas for things is something we as humans do. Look at this picture, I googled "house layout" and hundred of pictures, just like this one, showed up.
There's a designated room for the kitchen, for the bedroom, for the car, even to lounge in, as if you weren't allowed to do any of these things in any other rooms. When Thompson first said space "cannot be marked by screens or doors" I thought it was a weird statement, because that is actually how we separate spaces. This space is one house, that space is another. But the idea of fluidity, that everything is continuous, is actually the case. In The Apartment, the main character (who I can't remember his name, sorry!) can't separate his work life from his home life, and honestly that's probably the case with most people for one reason or another. Either you bring work home to finish up, or your work friends are or become your social friends, or even as simple as you talking about your work and the people there in your home life. The fact is, you can't designate these areas of space and expect things to stay put. In Bartleby, the Scrivener, because Bartleby has no home, it brings to light and crashes down this horrific idea (to the narrator). By Bartleby living and working literally in the same place, it brings to light this flaw in the system, that you can't separate the two, and work defines a person's life far more than it should.
He talks about that scene, where the narrator chooses to place Bartleby behind a screen to "preserve privacy," except for the fact that the narrator can break that barrier by talking, and Bartleby can get up and enter without knocking. I think the whole idea of taking a space and designating certain areas for things is something we as humans do. Look at this picture, I googled "house layout" and hundred of pictures, just like this one, showed up. 
There's a designated room for the kitchen, for the bedroom, for the car, even to lounge in, as if you weren't allowed to do any of these things in any other rooms. When Thompson first said space "cannot be marked by screens or doors" I thought it was a weird statement, because that is actually how we separate spaces. This space is one house, that space is another. But the idea of fluidity, that everything is continuous, is actually the case. In The Apartment, the main character (who I can't remember his name, sorry!) can't separate his work life from his home life, and honestly that's probably the case with most people for one reason or another. Either you bring work home to finish up, or your work friends are or become your social friends, or even as simple as you talking about your work and the people there in your home life. The fact is, you can't designate these areas of space and expect things to stay put. In Bartleby, the Scrivener, because Bartleby has no home, it brings to light and crashes down this horrific idea (to the narrator). By Bartleby living and working literally in the same place, it brings to light this flaw in the system, that you can't separate the two, and work defines a person's life far more than it should.
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