Senso e non senso del lavoro in Charles Bukowski

Abstract

The meaning and meaningless of work in Charles Bukowski

In the psychological and managerial literature, the meaning of work boasts a long tradition; in this topic, scholars and researchers explored sources of meaning and meaningfulness of the working activity in workers’ motivations, values and beliefs. A relatively smaller space, however, is assigned to the function work has in terms of signifier of individual’s personal identity.

This article aims at deeply examining the relationship between identity construction and meaning of work, focusing on this theme through the exploration of Charles Bukowski’s narrative world. The attention is particularly addressed to representations and emotional connotations characterizing the relationship between identity and work, deduced by the content analysis of his literary production. Bukowski’s difficult working experience sustainability intersects with the instability scenario of the second post war period in the U.S., recursively affecting the development of a self-reflexive thought around which an idea of oneself could be modeled. In this sense, the Author’s experience is paradigmatic for the contemporary condition, in so far as today’s work experience, deprived of a shared meaning system, negatively influences the meaning attribution process involving one’s own life experiences.