The Use of Sexuality in “The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tartarus of Maids” Brandon Taylor College

Herman Melville’s iconic short stories, “The Paradise of Bachelors and The Tartarus of Maids” are both rife will elements of human sexuality, which was a hot/controversial undercurrent in American literature at the time. Many writers such as Melville and his contemporaries often played with the question of sexuality and its controversially stifled position in Victorian society. Melville and many other during his time were able to question societal constructs in regards to sexuality via innuendos and small hints. While this is obviously covered in many works of Melville such as “Typee”, it takes center stage in Melville’s well-known “Paradise of Bachelors and Tartarus of Maids” and will be explored in this essay as well as the significance of Melville’s comparison of male and female sexuality.

In Melville’s first depiction out of the two short stories; “Paradise of Bachelors”, Melville makes note in the first few pages that the narrator is “different” than the bachelors of the story. First and foremost, the narrator is not a bachelor, but explains that he was able to secure lodgings in London with the faux Knights Templar via one of their current members. Though the narrator describes the feasting and festivities with impressive...