Post Office

In Post Office, Charles Bukowski portrays Hank Chinaski’s resistance to authority as both a personal creed and a reaction to the dehumanizing structure of bureaucratic labor. The Postal Service’s impossible delivery routes, rigid hierarchies, and mechanical repetition reflect mid-century American occupational conformity, a system designed to reward obedience and punish individuality. From the beginning, Hank recognizes that the institution values subservience over competence. His work as a substitute carrier exposes him to supervisors who wield petty power through arbitrary rules and constant surveillance. Instead of conforming, Hank undermines authority through sarcasm, deliberate carelessness, and minimal compliance. When faced with the cruelty of his supervisor, Jonstone, he refuses to “suck up” or perform false respect, even when it means losing work. His informal resistance is neither heroic nor organized: It’s a series of instinctive, everyday refusals that allow him to preserve his autonomy within a system built to erase it.

Hank’s interactions with Jonstone, whose tyranny defines Hank’s early years at the post office, form the basis for his aversion to authority throughout the rest of the novel. Jonstone withholds routes, assigns impossible workloads, and writes Hank up for trivial infractions. Hank describes Jonstone as a “bullneck” and “a man of such obvious cruelty” that he can’t imagine who allowed him to occupy a position of power (15). Jonstone represents the entrenched cruelty of bureaucratic power; he’s an individual who hides behind rules and procedures to assert dominance. The system itself is designed to protect figures like Jonstone. When Hank files a 30-page complaint, hoping to expose the abuse, the response from management isn’t reform but mockery. The official who reads his report berates him for using too many big words, a moment that demonstrates how bureaucracies reduce language, intellect, and dissent to threats. Instead of changing the system, Hank learns that the only way to survive it is to stop caring. The only result of his complaint is that Jonstone quietly retaliates by withholding work from him or assigning him the worst routes available. Hank’s interactions with him reveal the futility of confronting authority directly. When Jonstone enforces unreasonable rules or humiliates workers, Hank responds with caustic wit rather than submission. His defiance exposes the absurdity of a system in which authority is arbitrary and power exists only for its own preservation.

Later, when Jonstone reprimands him for breaking minor rules, Hank responds with indifference, discarding the disciplinary slips unread. His attitude of noncompliance becomes a quiet protest against meaningless control. Even when his rebellion costs him stability, it preserves his sense of self. Hank works for the Postal Service for 12 soul-sucking years, enduring maltreatment by petty authoritarians like Jonstone. However, the final straw that causes him to resign is when his old work buddy, Tom Moto, a former ally against Jonstone, becomes a supervisor. By becoming a supervisor, Tom represents a level of success that Hank never achieves, but it comes at the cost of completely assimilating into the system. Hank’s resignation is his most decisive act of resistance. After years of enduring the grind, he walks away from what society deems a “good job.” His decision isn’t triumphant but an assertion of his humanity. Bukowski frames this rejection of authority as both self-destructive and liberating: Hank loses security but regains his freedom to live on his own terms.