Power Relations in Melville’s The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids

Power Relations in Melville’s The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids

In the mid-nineteenth century, the United States heralded the coming of the “new industrial order.” With the advent of railroads, industrialization went into full swing. Factories and mills appeared and multiplied, and the push for economic progress became the grand narrative of the country. Still, there was a conscious effort to avoid the filth and poverty so prevalent in European factory towns. Specifically, the town of Lowell, Massachusetts, was held up as an exemplary model of industrial utopia. The mill town included beautiful landscaping and dormitories for the women workers. Indeed, it looked much like a university campus (Klein 231). Nevertheless, this idealized vision eventually gave way to the reality of human greed. The female factory workers worked long hours for little pay as their health deteriorated from the hazardous conditions (238). (Specifically, Carson’s Mill in Dalton, Massachusetts, served as the model for Melville’s short story [Melville 2437].) In this way, industrialization (and the subsequent desire for economic wealth) became incompatible with democratic principles. Originally, the prevailing consciousness was that industrialization would further democracy and the two would become a complimentary pair. However, the reality was that these societal changes brought economic divisions; the boundaries were drawn more clearly between the privileged class and the working class.

Industrialization finally results in the separation of the classes and the subsequent dialectical tension of production and consumption. This dualistic separation is made possible through the machine, the integral element that cements the unequal distribution of power. In his moral diptych, Melville questions industrialization by exploring these class divisions and the power relations within them. Ultimately, he concludes that it results in an exploitative system that thrives on both connection and isolation. Although the two spheres are physically and emotionally separated, they depend on each other for their continuation. Melville’s “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids” expertly shows this interrelationship between the owners of the means of production (the bachelors) and the workers (the maids), and how it finally results in the oppression of the workers.

The first part of the tale illustrates the paradoxical life of the industrial class; they are gluttonous consumers and yet live out an empty existence. This wealthy class is represented in the form of bachelor lawyers.