The Axe

Penelope Fitzgerald was born into a family of literary luminaries, including several prominent writers and scholars. While she experimented with several different careers—such as editor, teacher, and bookshop owner—she ultimately became an acclaimed writer herself late in life. After publishing several biographies, Fitzgerald turned to fiction, debuting with The Golden Child (1977). She quickly gained prominence with her subsequent novels, including The Bookshop (1978), which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Offshore (1979), which won the prestigious award. Fitzgerald used her early work experiences in her writing, much of which is indebted to her personal life, but she also drew inspiration from history. The Blue Flower (1995), which is widely considered her masterpiece, is a fictionalized account of an actual leader of the German Romanticism movement. While Fitzgerald is primarily known for her novels, she also published several short stories, including “The Axe,” which were collected after her death in The Means of Escape (2000). Her fiction is celebrated for its complex themes, subtlety, and concise prose, all of which cemented her legacy as one of Britain’s finest 20th-century voices.

Penelope Fitzgerald’s “The Axe” reflects themes of bureaucratic indifference, personal alienation, and the dehumanizing effects of institutional systems. As such, the story resonates with historical events such as post-war austerity measures and the economic restructuring that took place in the 1950s and 1960s, particularly in Great Britain. During this period, industries and organizations underwent significant downsizing and modernization, often resulting in widespread layoffs. The story’s focus on the narrator’s complicity in the dismissal of an employee mirrors the era’s growing anxieties about job security, the ethics of corporate decision-making, and the loss of traditional workplace loyalties in an increasingly impersonal economic landscape.

“The Axe” is deeply indebted to both Herman Melville’s “Bartleby, The Scrivener” and Edgar Allan Poe’s short fiction. Melville’s story is narrated by a lawyer who employs the titular Bartleby, an assistant clerk who, like Fitzgerald’s Singlebury, grows increasingly ghostly over the course of the story. As with the Narrator in “The Axe,” Melville’s narrator, also unnamed, feels so much remorse after firing Bartleby that he grows fixated on and haunted by his actions. Both stories also contain incisive critiques of the dehumanizing and alienating aspects of corporate environments. Toward the end of “The Axe,” Fitzgerald’s Gothic leanings begin to take center stage. The morbid conclusion bears similarities to many stories by Poe, particularly “The Black Cat” and “The Tell-Tale Heart,” both of which feature characters whose guilt ultimately compromises their sanity. Finally, “The Axe” is also an example of workplace fiction, a subgenre that became increasingly prominent throughout the 20th century and that dominates today. Fitzgerald’s use of speculative elements to comment on workplace alienation and exploitation can be seen in contemporary works as diverse as Zakiya Dalila Harris’s The Other Black Girl and Ling Ma’s Severance, both of which have been adapted for television.