# The Tartarus of Maids explained — Short Fiction

> Chapter companion for Short Fiction by Herman Melville.

## What happens

The narrator, a seedsman, travels through a bleak, wintry landscape to a paper-mill located in a hellish hollow called the Devil's Dungeon. He describes the oppressive environment and the dehumanizing labor of the pale, sickly female workers who produce paper. The mill's machinery is portrayed as a mechanical, almost infernal process, culminating in the production of paper that the narrator will use for seed envelopes.

## Themes in this chapter

### Nature and Desolation

The bleak, frozen landscape and the hellish hollow of the Devil's Dungeon emphasize a desolate, hostile natural environment.

### Isolation and Alienation

The narrator's solitary journey and the pale, silent female workers highlight themes of isolation and alienation in industrial settings.

### Justice and Injustice

The dehumanizing labor and the 'executioner' imagery of the girls sharpening scythes suggest systemic injustice and exploitation.

## Character check-ins

### The Narrator (Tartarus of Maids)

The seedsman who visits the paper-mill and observes the grim conditions.

### The Narrator (Tartarus of Maids)

The narrator who describes the journey and the mill's operations.

## Key lines

> Turning to the east, right out from among bright farms and sunny meadows, nodding in early June with odorous grasses, you enter ascendingly among bleak hills.

The narrator describes a transition from a cheerful, fertile landscape to a barren, mountainous region.

_Sets the contrast between pastoral beauty and industrial desolation._

> Their own executioners; themselves whetting the very swords that slay them; meditated I.

The narrator reflects on the irony of the female workers sharpening the tools that will metaphorically destroy them.

_Highlights the theme of self-destructive labor and systemic oppression._

> This is the very counterpart of the Paradise of Bachelors, but snowed upon, and frost-painted in a sepulchre.

The narrator compares the mill to a previous idyllic setting, now transformed into a cold, deathly place.

_Emphasizes the inversion of paradise into a tomb-like industrial space._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_28_se/chapters/the-tarturus-of-maids
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_28_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/short_fiction_28_se/chapters