Contrasting Places

The short stories, “The Paradise of Bachelors” and “The Tartarus of Maids,” show great contrast between the living experiences of the bachelors and maids. As explained by my fellow classmates, it is evident that the narrator closely details the extreme polar conditions of these two groups of people. Full of knowledge and literary scholarship, the well-to-do bachelors enjoy a life of merriment and abundance which they seem to communicate and share together. However, the maids become objects of desolation and misery through the harsh working conditions they face. After further examination, I have come to understand that the narrator also uses the setting of each story to show this difference.

In the initial passages of “Paradise of Bachelors,” we are given pleasant images of the Temple, both natural and artificial, that display the freedom of comfort that these men are allowed to experience. They are allowed to “sip [their] leisure in the garden” or “worship in the sculptured chapel,” to act in whatever manner that appeals to them as bachelors in all the beautiful places of the Temple (1257). The beauty of the Temple’s environment makes it conducive for doing any activity. It makes the Temple accessible to them at any moment and gives them the freedom to make use of its attractive resources. These bachelors are not affected negatively by the outlook of their surroundings, but are motivated to enjoy their lives in the Temple. “The narrator himself describes the Temple as a city of its own, filled with “flower beds…. courts, banquet halls, cloisters…” The temple is aesthetically pleasing, and if it is a big as a city, it provides these men with the luxury of living and experiencing this abundance of provisions for their own gratification.

On the other hand, “The Tarturus of Maids,” immediately presents us with the dismal environment that surrounds the paper mill. The author explains that gusts of snow “blast piercingly and shrilly” and that “mountains stood pinned in shrouds…a pass of Alpine corpses,” creating a completely lifeless environment (1268, 1269). The stillness of the surrounding contributes to the severe lifestyle of the girls because they become depressed from the monotony and dullness of what they see around them. They are unable to enjoy the peacefulness of their homes, but must work as frozen and solemn as the mountains that surround them. They are strongly affected by the bleakness and dullness to the point where they do not talk even to one another. The fact that these girls keep silent explains that they have adapted to the lifelessness of their surroundings. The harsh weather and natural conditions do not leave any hope for their lives, and this is not worth speaking about. Also, the paper mill is referred to as the “Devil’s Dungeon,” or a “Dantean gateway”, signifying hell, the place where people there are made to suffer without rest (1266). These descriptions are extremely cruel and frightening, but they portray the harsh intensity of factory work in this paper mill. The girls undergo continuous physical labor and are subjected to twelve hours of work every day for an entire year. It only depicts the factory as a place of torment and cruelty and shows the girls’ misery and pain as they work in such a place.

My question is quite different from my blog post. I was just wondering that, the owner of the factory happens to be a bachelor, who is cruel not only to the girls, but strict with the narrator. This totally goes against the character of bachelors from the story “The Paradise of Bachelors.” I wanted to ask from the points of view of both stories, “Who are Bachelors?”   “Are they just selfish pretenders, or what?”