{"id":319,"date":"2012-09-30T18:52:40","date_gmt":"2012-09-30T22:52:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.briancroxall.net\/lit-tech\/?p=319"},"modified":"2012-09-30T18:52:40","modified_gmt":"2012-09-30T22:52:40","slug":"opposites-relate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.briancroxall.net\/lit-tech\/2012\/09\/30\/opposites-relate\/","title":{"rendered":"Opposites Relate"},"content":{"rendered":"

Herman Melville\u2019s The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids<\/em> consists of two short stories that relate through heavily contrasting descriptions. In The Paradise of Bachelors<\/em>, the narrator explains a world where the characters are all given the opportunity and privileges to be important in their world. The elite dinner explained serves as an example showing how little the attendees have worked for their access: \u201cthe apartment was well up toward heaven. I know not how many strange old stairs I climbed to get to it. But a good dinner, with famous company, should be well earned,\u201d (Melville 1261). This location of the dinner shows great insight into Melville\u2019s opinion on the differing lives of the elite and working-class. A \u2018well earned\u2019 meal for the elite is walking up a few flights of stairs, but for the women working in the paper mill in the Tartarus of Maids<\/em>, a well earned meal is working \u201ctwelve hours to the day, day after day, through the three hundred and sixty-five days,\u201d (1278). Unlike the feasting, happy men, the workingwomen work brutal hours to provide for themselves. The contrasting lives in these dissimilar stories reveal an immense amount of information about the divisions in society. Another example of differences in the two stories lies in the characters\u2019 descriptions and features. The men in the first story do not have spouses of children because they did not want anything giving them \u201can anxious thought\u201d (1264). The women in the second story, however, the manager of the mill, Cupid, tells the narrator \u201cwe will not have married women\u201d (1278). The men have the choice to marry, but the women cannot decide for themselves. During their long hours of working in the mill, the women slowly transform into the products of the machines they command. Their lack of freedom physically turns them into the paper produced: \u201cat rows of blank-looking counters sat rows of blank-looking girls, with blank, white folders in their blank hands, all blankly folding blank paper\u201d (1270). Paper\u2019s appearance, white and blank, starts to read in the women\u2019s faces. Furthermore, the women\u2019s brows also transform with the paper as the woman\u2019s face and paper both go into the machine blank, and the paper and the other worker\u2019s face come out ruled and wrinkled. Lastly, Melville connects these two contrasting places and explains why they differ. During the narrator\u2019s journey to the paper mill, he states realizes that \u201c[The Devil\u2019s Dungeon] is the very counterpart of the Paradise of Bachelors, but snowed upon, and frost-painted to a sepulchre\u201d (1269). The paper mill has the potential to be the beautiful, thriving city of elite, but the snow of the factory imagery disrupts the workingwomen\u2019s ability to live freely.<\/p>\n

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There are many more hidden examples of contrasting lives within these two stories, like the men\u2019s hoping for the greatest health for their neighbors and the manager\u2019s dictatorial attitude toward the women. I ultimately think, however, that Melville believes that factories destroy mankind and obstruct the thriving potential of a society.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Herman Melville\u2019s The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids consists of two short stories that relate through heavily contrasting descriptions. In The Paradise of Bachelors, the narrator explains a world where the characters are all given the opportunity and privileges to be important in their world. The elite dinner explained serves as an<\/p>\n