A. Men: Male Economy And Social Standing Research Paper Example

Research Paper Outline/Prep Assignment

I. Introductory Paragraph
A. Mellville wrote the paper in two distinct sections, based on two different personal experiences with the men and women of London.
B. As such he draws two very emotional images of the men and women of his era, built around imagery and metaphor, which depict two very different classes, and which approach the era’s labor and debauchery from very different angles.
C. Thesis statement: More specifically, Melville analyzes both the behavior of society, and how they compared to, or connected to the social norms, and social contradictions of his era, and what that meant for members of each gender class.
II. According to Wigman, both the bachelors as a social class, and the maids as a social class, are defined by their relationship with mail power (Serlin, 80).

B. Maids enslaved my male controlled labor system
C. Men are free, and women are limited in access to joy.
III. Men are, as such depicted as Templars, known later as . And rakes

The use of religious symbology throughout the text is indicative of a symbolic kind of nobles-oblige

“Knights Templar, who owned the area in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and considers how these ‘warrior-priests’ have degenerated into mere lawyers (Dalsgard, I).”

Repeatedly brings to mind the fallen Templar that were fallen from grace, but still full of power

“Though to be a Templar, in the one true sense, you must needs be a lawyer, or a student at the law, and be ceremoniously enrolled as member of the order, yet as many such, though Templars, do not reside within the Temple's precincts, though they may have their offices there, just so, on the other hand, there are many residents of the hoary old domiciles who are not admitted Templars. If being, say, a lounging gentleman and bachelor, or a quiet, unmarried, literary man, charmed with the soft seclusion of the spot, you much desire to pitch your shady tent among the rest in this serene encampment, then you must make some special friend among the order, and procure him to rent, in his name but at your charge, whatever vacant chamber you may find to suit (Mellville 2).”
“Before the bachelors retire for the night and the narrator leaves the brotherhood in elevated spirits contemplating how the life of such a fraternity of ‘easy–hearted men’, unburdened by wives and children, is ‘the very Paradise of Bachelors’” (Dalsgard, I).
IV. Women are depicted as subject to drudgery and female subjugation to biological processes contrast with the bachelors’ happy life and male freedom (Rowland, 389)
The images are rustic, dirty, and rough. They use crags, instead of temples, and hard-to-travel ground instead of plush palaces.

Woman is considered an “other” by the social majority at the time (Wiegman, 735)

B. The first depiction/ mention of a woman is of a hag
C. Women are depicted aging before their time
a. I looked upon the first girl's brow, and saw it was young and fair; I looked upon the second girl's brow, and saw it was ruled and wrinkled. Then, as I still looked, the two -- for some small variety to the monotony -- changed places; and where had stood the young, fair brow, now stood the ruled and wrinkled one (Mellville, 12).
VII. Conclusion

References:

Hunnerup Dalsgaard, I. (2009, June 1). Producing and Consuming Passions: Women Workers and Writing Desires in Melville’s New England. Retrieved March 15, 2015.
Melville, H. (2009). The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids short story. Pymble, NSW: HarperCollins e-books.
Rowland, B. (1969). Melville's Bachelors and Maids: Interpretation Through Symbol and Metaphor. American Literature, 41(3), 389-405.
Serlin, D. (1995). The Dialogue of Gender in Melville's "The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids" Modern Language Studies, 25(2), 80-87.
Wiegman, R. (1989). Melville's Geography of Gender. American Literary History, 1(4), 735-753.