A Paradise for Ladies

From the little snippets of relevant writing that our textbook sporadically provides us in those familiar gray boxes, it’s interesting to note the explicit and more subtle effects of the Second Industrial Revolution. For example, in the excerpt from Emile Zola’s novel The Ladies’ Paradise (1883), a central theme of the era is expressed, perhaps a bit melodramatically. In his exploration o consumption, Zola seems to agree with the idea of his time that it sparked the “moral disaster of women’s limitless desire for goods.” His character Denise is fascinated by the horrific effect the department store has upon women who go there to buy the goods that they apparently desire so strongly. She watches as groups of women form “a real mob, made brutal by covetousness.” His description of the materials – laces, lengths of cloth, overcoats, etc. – is almost terrifying, as Zola breathes life into these objects of consumption, making the materials (and, by implication, the acquisition of them and materialism in general), monstrous and awful. Most horrific, however, and at the time perhaps most telling, is his metaphor for the department store.

There was the continuous roar of the machine at work, of customers, crowding into the departments, dazzled by the merchandise, then propelled towards the cash-desk. And it was all regulated and organized with the remorsefulness of a machine: the vast horde of women were as if caught in the wheels of an inevitable force.

This description sheds light on the conflicting beliefs, hopes and fears of people at the time, who must have been equally fascinated by, the new inventions of the period, and worried as they watched all of society, seemingly, operate on an unbelievably large scale, with large corporations, mass consumption, and mass politics eclipsing the individual completely. Here is also the fear of man’s own creation – symbolized by the general machine – and its power and control over its creator. Thus, Zola’s choice of metaphor can be nothing but deliberate as he explores the conflicting values and experiences of the time.