Taking a firm hold on the social norm, cultural expectations, and the business practice In Its nurture. In their wake, machines of the Industrial Revolution replaced human artistry. It was precisely because of these that made human craftsmanship outdated and obsolete; It was precisely because of these that the big department store, an emblem of capitalism, was able to emerge, dominate, and swallow up smaller competition. As a contemporary issue for its time, It is no surprise that The Ladles’ Paradise, by Г?mile Cola, concentrates on the struggle of the smaller shops and the immense success and dominance of the big. W department store. Yet, it is not the stark difference between the dying shops of an age past and the new big stores of the future that is the quintessential essence of the mechanization of the nineteenth century, but the symbolic description of the Ladies’ Paradise as a soulless machine. L In the novel, people begrudge Ladies’ Paradise and its seemingly unexplainable success, but it is not until the ‘machine’ gains a soul that Ladies’ Paradise becomes complete in its supremacy.
Denies first witnesses Ladies’ Paradise come alive and “felt that she was watching a machine working at high pressure”; its gears – the trials – coming to life: “the laces shivered… Even the lengths of cloth… Were breathing… While the overcoats were throwing back their shoulders” and the dummies seemed to have ;flesh and blood… Heaving breast and quivering hips. ” It was as If the “continuous roar of the machine” exhibited “the customers crowding into the departments” being “propelled towards the cash-desk” as If on a conveyer belt, “caught In the wheels of an inevitable force” that Is the “remorselessness of a machine. 2 The Paradises’ was not there In order to establish a relationship with customers, but rather to efficiently capture women by seducing them with anything and everything they can sell, like a well oiled machine. Others, particularly the small shop owners surrounding the Paradise, felt that the big department store was full of “dandies” who “treated the goods and the customers like parcels. Dropping their employers or being dropped by him at a moment’s notice. ” The Paradise possesses “no affection, no manners. O art! “3 Furthermore, Octave Mourner, the commander and chief of the machine, only wished to devour, capitalize, and conquer Woman. He anted to put her on a pedestal “in order to hold her at his mercy”4 The women were the oil and power of the machine; they were what made the department store “smooth running” as if “like a well-made machine”5. Everything about the Ladies’ Paradise screamed inhuman, as if a soulless “monster’6 that did not care about anyone but itself.
Even Denies, who would ultimately give the machine its soul, felt the ominous power of the store. Denies, although fascinated and enraptured by the Paradise, was ;terrified” of the “monster”, In which she “was so lost and small”, afraid hat “she would be caught up In Its motion”; Its relentless teeth “extracting money from” the customers’ ‘Were flesh”. Once out of reach of the monster’s grasp, “she felt her chest” emerging from “the heavy stones of the Ladies’ paradise” that have been “weighing her down”.
She was not like the other employees, who’s only ambition was seduced into yielding their money, nor was she like Mourner who simply did what he did in order to dominate and hold supremacy. Denies never became a part of the mechanics, no matter how desperately Mourner tried to incorporate her into the workings of his machine. Mourner, a womanlier of sorts who carefully calculates who he involves himself with so, is confused by Adenine’s constant and firm refusal to Join the others he conquered in the past. He, the puppeteer who controlled, manipulated, or seduced everyone, did not have perfect control over one woman, Denies.
Mourner, who usually did not get himself involved in the business of employee turnover went out his way to offer Denies her Job back, almost as if he felt something was missing with her absence. He tried to make her a part of his world, his mechanical world, by enticing her with benefits, promotions, and finally an invitation to become his. With her return Mourner strove to capture this girl who seemed to evade complete submission to his machine. Denies ultimately reputes his invitation, which also initiates her refusal to become a tool of the machine.
The distraught Mourner felt over his feelings for Denies and his desire to obtain her only made him realize that his precious Paradise, which brought him his desired fortune, fame, and authority, was as incomplete and cold as his success in dominating in business. With Denies out of his reach with her relentless refusal to comply with and give into Mourner’s lust – and eventually love and obsession – over her. As he looks upon Denies with “despair”, his empire, which illuminates the street of old, crumbling, dingy, and dark shops with its blazing lights of operation, life, innovation, ambition, and seduction, has “nothing left… He shop was plunged into darkness. “8 Mourner feels empty, despite his immense wealth and prosperity he gained from operating such a well-oiled industrial monster. This is confirmed later confirmed. When Mourner ultimately choose Denies, a miscalculated passion, over his past deliberate relationship with Madame Disgorges. Due to her her immediate and humiliating failure to embarrass Denies and recapture Mourner, she exacted “revenge by helping” Bottommost “set up a rival shop…. Equate Caissons, for which the newspapers were already full of advertisements. 9 He, the conductor, was breaking. His old ways of only seeing people as money, as a way to attain power, as tools and oil for his machine, was not applicable to Denies, and he knew that without her he and his monster would not be able to go one without first becoming insane. Thus began “the reign of Denies. “10 Denies was the soul the Ladies’ Paradise desperately needed. She made it more human. She persuaded Mourner, who at this point would do anything for her in order to maintain any sort of relationship with her, to implement her humanitarian initiatives. 1 These initiatives improved the lives of the employees significantly, finally breathing in and applying desperately need compassion to the Paradise, making it less of a monster and more of a haven for both workers and customers alike. No longer was the machine a monster. Denies was able to take the industrial, seemingly ruthless, and inevitable capitalistic nature of the Paradise and make it more human, more acceptable, even ascribable in comparison to what it used to be and in comparison to the old-fashioned procedures.
Denies completed the Ladies’ Paradise by making it wholesome, almost poetic, and absolutely alive. Since the beginning of the novel when Denies first arrives and is captivated by the big department store, the Ladies’ Paradise, a result of dominate force that operated like a mighty machine. However, as aforementioned by many characters in the book and by the narrator himself, the Paradise was a monster as well as a machine, using people in anyway it saw fit in order to grow in affluence and supremacy.
Thus, in this way, this high functioning machine was missing a soul, for everyone inside the belly of paradise was there for shallow, shelf-interested reasons. Only when someone, only when Denies enters does the tight reign on the operation of business soften and make way for the interest of others. Denies not only embeds a soul into the gears of Mourner’s machine, but also becomes the very soul necessary to complete its industrial revolution. The Ladies’ Paradise has finally become part machine and part human. Work Cited Cola, Г?mile, and Brian Nelson. The Ladies’ Paradise. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008. Print.
