{"id":324,"date":"2012-10-01T15:42:04","date_gmt":"2012-10-01T19:42:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.briancroxall.net\/lit-tech\/?p=324"},"modified":"2012-10-01T15:42:04","modified_gmt":"2012-10-01T19:42:04","slug":"futile-devices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.briancroxall.net\/lit-tech\/2012\/10\/01\/futile-devices\/","title":{"rendered":"Futile Devices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Upon reading \u201cThe Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids\u201d <\/em>I already had an idea about the contrasting worlds Melville was going to write about. Perhaps Melville was setting up a story foil, emphasizing differences by providing contrasting settings. Within these two stories, we are taken from a gluttonous social order of bachelors in London to the secluded factory near Woedolor Mountain. Accepting the obvious differences between both settings, we can agree that similarity exists between the paradise of bachelors and the tartarus of maids.<\/p>\n

Isolation, the perfect ingredient for ignorance, keeps the divine world of luxury far from anything out of the ordinary. For the bachelors, their \u201cTemple is, indeed a city by itself\u201d, where the men miss out on a part of life that is necessary to explain the difference between paradise and Tartarus (Melville 1259). The isolation is not only geographical, but between the bachelors themselves. The lack of diversity within the group of bachelors brings about a saddening truth which is revealed when they all get together for a drinking session. The men share \u201call sorts of pleasant stories\u201d about other times they indulged in \u2018elaborate splendors\u201d and things that are related (Melville 1263). They feast off the brilliance of each other\u2019s lives, but there is no need to live vicariously because the men have nothing to be envious of.<\/p>\n

However, I find this endless bachelor party deficient of the most important thing men want, sex. Is it true that a society of satisfied bachelors can exist without the longing for sex? Not in my opinion. Maybe Melville wants to keep women out of his story for his strong point of gender inequality, but in reality we do not find this type of man, and especially this type of bachelor. The term bachelor in itself puts an image of a young, sex driven, male type \u201cRunaround Sue\u201d character into my head, and I\u2019m sure I\u2019m not the only one thinking this way. But how is it that in \u201cThe Tartarus of Maids\u201d the man that shows the narrator around the factory is named Cupid. After all it can\u2019t be a coincidence that Cupid is the god of desire, affection and erotic love, and the name of man who works in a factory that is devoid of all those things. Cupid explains that they only hire \u201cmaids\u201d because they are steady workers, assuming that married women are well off because of their husbands, or will not leave their husbands for secluded job. There is a subtle similarity between the \u201cblank paper\u201d and the maids that work in the factory that make it (Melville 1272). Both are in abundance, useful for one thing, and easily replaced. A sad reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Upon reading \u201cThe Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids\u201d I already had an idea about the contrasting worlds Melville was going to write about. Perhaps Melville was setting up a story foil, emphasizing differences by providing contrasting settings. Within these two stories, we are taken from a gluttonous social order of bachelors in<\/p>\n