Moral Education in “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids”

In keeping with the allusive density of Melville’s writings, “The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids” provides readers with a complementary pair of sketches highlighting a gamut of issues relating to gender, sexuality, domesticity, industrialization, and Anglo-American social, cultural, and economic relations. The present essay argues that the ultimate aim of the paired sketches was to educate the reader by dramatically juxtaposing scenes of (English) male privilege and (American) female oppression, showing that the latter was a truer indicator of the human condition; moreover, the second sketch provided a probing and comprehensive survey of the ruthless exploitation of female workers in one of the hundreds of industrial mills established in New England during the antebellum era. With his title drawing on a neglected tradition of proverbial wisdom, Melville incorporated a host of biblical and other religious allusions in his paired sketches in order to enhance the paradigmatic impact of his social and moral critique.