Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in The Ladies’ Paradise, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Consumerism and Excess
Women, Exploitation, and Power
Tradition vs. Modernity
Class and Mobility
Summary
Analysis
On a cold Monday in March, the Ladies’ Paradise opens its new building and hosts a sale of summer fashions. The small tradesmen stand in their doorways and look at the new gilded awning of the Ladies’ Paradise and the mounds of goods visible through its glass walls. The new building has a long gallery with iron staircases up to the second floor, with iron bridges connecting the left and right sides. It is a “cathedral of modern business,” a space equipped for massive crowds. The Ladies’ Paradise now has 39 departments and 1800 employees, 200 of whom are women.
The Ladies’ Paradise—which resembles the modern-day shopping mall—is such a new phenomenon during this time that it doesn’t have a proper name. Instead, people call it “a cathedral of modern business,” comparing it to a church which single-handedly serves an entire community. The sheer amount of people The Paradise employs shows how the workforce of Paris is becoming consolidated under this one employer.
Themes
Mouret wants women to be “queen” in the Ladies’ Paradise. He exploits women’s desires so as to have them at his mercy. To this end, he built velvet-lined elevators, a buffet room serving cordial and biscuits, and a reading room. He also plans to hand out balloons to kids so as to get to women through their maternal instincts. Mouret spent thousands on ads for the Ladies’ Paradise and also invented the concept of returns: in assuring women that they can return what they don’t like, he leaves them no excuse not to buy whatever they want. Mouret leaves no corner empty in the shop and arranges it so as to create crowds.
Mouret finds more ways to exploit female desires to his advantage. Instead of creating a neutral shop where he provides a service in response to a woman’s expressed need, Mouret persuades his female customers to buy things by appealing to them through their desires, instinct, and sentimental weaknesses. This system creates the foundation of a consumer culture—a culture in which people buy things they don’t need.
Themes
The weekend before Monday’s sale, Mouret is suddenly inspired to rearrange the Ladies’ Paradise. Currently, the shop is arranged logically, with like departments together so that everything is easy to find. Mouret orders all the departments to be moved, creating such an upheaval that things are still being moved Monday morning. When Bourdoncle questions this, Mouret shouts that he wants his customers to get lost, passing through the whole shop to get where they need to go, and being waylaid by other departments on the way. Bourdoncle laughs at Mouret’s delight.
Mouret’s decision to confuse his customers and cause them to get lost seems counter-intuitive at first but is actually in line with his business model. An organized store would appeal to a customer’s logic and would help them find the thing they need. However, the Ladies’ Paradise’s success relies on its customers acting emotionally rather than logically and buying things they do not need.
Themes
Just then, Mouret sees Denise, who had been back at the Ladies’ Paradise since February. To Mouret’s amusement, Denise looks astonished by the new arrangement of the store. Denise notices Mouret and blushes, thinking of what Pauline told her about his relationships with Madame Desforges and Clara. Mouret asks Denise to come to his office after the sale. As she walks away, Bourdoncle, who worries about Denise’s influence on Mouret, tells Mouret to be careful. Mouret says that no woman can catch him.
Mouret thinks that no woman can catch him, but he has already compromised some of his business principles because of his feelings for Denise. For instance, he broke his code of impersonality by hiring her back. Mouret’s choice to reevaluate some of his policies because of a woman will either be the ruin of him—as Bourdoncle suggests—or it will change his business for the better.
Themes
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Mouret goes downstairs and shouts at some assistants who arranged the parasol display differently than he asked them to. Then, the doors open. A mob forms at the door where Mouret had stacked bargain materials. A few people scream that they are suffocating.
The huge crowd that forms at the door by the bargain goods proves that the customers of the Ladies’ Paradise come for the low prices above any other reason.
Themes
Outside, Madame de Boves and Blanche run into Madame Marty and Valentine. Madame Marty says she is only going in for a piece of braid. Madame de Boves says that she had only come out for some fresh air, and that she is not going to the sale; the crowd scares her anyway. However, she and Blanche are swept into the current and they all enter the shop, moving with the crowd. They feel enlivened by the color and excitement of the store and gaze in wonder at the vibrant parasols, which are arranged in cascading pinwheels. Madame Marty starts to look for the braid she came for and Madame de Boves follows her.
This conversation foreshadows the sale’s complete undoing of all the ladies’ excuses. The Paradise appeals to its customers against their better judgement. Instead of being a practical place, it is a place where women indulge in their vices. The aristocratic ladies discuss their practical reasons for attending the sale at the Ladies’ Paradise and assure each other (and themselves) that they are not that excited for it in an attempt to conceal their undignified excitement.
Themes
As soon as the ladies step away from the door, they are lost. After searching for the braid, they wind up back at the entrance. Jouve finally directs them to the right department, but meanwhile Valentine has gone to look at a table of scarves. The salesman at the table says that these scarves are a rare bargain, and Madame Marty, convinced, buys two of them.
This scene puts Mouret’s scheme of disorganization to the test, and it passes. If the Paradise had been organized, Madame Marty would have found her braid right away and left without spending more. But since she got lost, she has time to shop spontaneously.
Themes
As Madame Marty again hurries off to find her braid, she is seduced by a display of gloves arranged to look like a Swiss chalet. When pressed by Mignot, she buys a pair. Madame Marty wails to Madame de Boves that she is lost. They run into Madame Bourdelais who, not being a shopper, has come to show her children the spectacle. They finally find the braid department, but it is so crowded that they can’t find help. Madame Marty buys a red parasol. Madame Bourdelais says that the real bargains will be in a few months and then takes her children upstairs.
Madame Marty is an example of how Mouret gets customers by first confusing them, and then appealing to their emotions. Madame Bourdelais is an example of how Mouret appeals to female customers through their instincts, in this case, her maternal instinct. While Madame Marty had only wanted braid, and Madame Bourdelais doesn’t have interest in the shop herself, they both patronize the Ladies’ Paradise because of Mouret’s unique schemes.
Themes
While Madame de Boves and Blanche stay downstairs, Madame Bourdelais and Madame Marty take one of the elevators upstairs. Madame Marty and Valentine start buying petticoats. Madame Bourdelais finds the buffet room and feeds her children cordial and biscuits. Then she takes them to the reading room, where people are lounging and writing letters on provided paper. Madame Bourdelais sees and greets Madame Guibal, who seems annoyed to have been spotted. She says haughtily that she only came to return something. She says that she returns most of the things she buys after keeping them a few days.
Mouret adds amenities to The Paradise that ensure that even the women who don’t like shopping patronize his store. He makes the Paradise more than a store: he makes it an experience in which there is something for every kind of person—every kind of consumer. Although Madame Bourdelais doesn’t buy anything, and Madame Guibal abuses the return policy, their patronage of the Paradise advertises it, and therefore increases its popularity.
Themes
Monsieur de Boves comes in with Vallagnosc. Madame Guibal pretends not to notice Monsieur de Boves. Mouret comes in and greets Vallagnosc as Monsieur de Boves says that Madame de Boves is home sick, and then he makes a show of noticing Madame Guibal and going up to chat. Vallagnosc whispers to Mouret that Monsieur de Boves has been going to meet Madame Guibal frequently under the pretense of travelling. When Mouret asks, Vallagnosc says that he and Blanche are waiting to marry until his rich aunt dies. They watch Monsieur de Boves slip Madame Guibal an address.
The Ladies’ Paradise exposes the frivolity of the upper-class aristocrats: Madame Guibal and Monsieur de Boves’s affair is brought into the open in its communal space. In this way, while The Paradise raises its employees to a higher class—or at least an undefined but not lower class—it lowers the upper class by exposing their vices and hypocrisies. In this way, The Paradise evens the playing field between the upper and lower classes.
Themes
Downstairs, Madame Desforges makes her way through the crowd and gazes around. The downstairs architecture is undecorated so as not to outshine the merchandise, but the ceiling is adorned with painted sculptures and gilded chandeliers. At the top, the bedroom department displays dangling beds made up with lacy linens. Madame Desforges is struck by the diverse crowd: people of all classes and ages throng together among balloons and mannequins with price tags sticking out of red necks.
As Mouret once stated, The Paradise appeals to women’s universal desires. The result is a muddling of the class distinctions that were typically rigid in this society. In muddling these distinctions in this way, The Paradise opens the possibility of mobility among the classes, or at least a redefining of what constitutes upper and lower class.
Themes
Several salesmen approach Madame Desforges, but she ignores them. When Bouthemont sees her, he tells her it was bold of her to come. Bouthemont had become an acquaintance of Madame Desforges’s and recently told her of Mouret’s affair with Clara, without giving Clara’s name. Madame Desforges asks to see some silk. Hutin—who has become tyrannical since taking Robineau’s place—yells at Favier, who is helping a lady dressed in mourning clothes. While Favier is measuring her choice of silk, Madame Desforges tries to get Bouthemont to tell her the name of the girl Mouret is having an affair with.
Madame Desforges was clearly upset to learn that Mouret started an affair with another girl and seems to be setting out to thwart the new relationship. This suggests that Madame Desforges could be the woman that Bourdoncle once warned Mouret would “get her revenge” on him for exploiting women. Whether or not she will be this revenge, Madame Desforges does not appreciate being used by Mouret and then tossed aside.
Themes
Before Bouthemont can answer, Denise walks by. To thwart Favier, Hutin hands Madame Desforges over to Denise. Madame Desforges recognizes Denise as the girl who had been fired, and decides that, since Mouret clearly hired her back, she must be the girl he is sleeping with. Denise leads Madame Desforges upstairs, where they are assaulted by an even larger crowd. When she closes her eyes, Madame Desforges can smell “the odour of Woman.”
The “odour of Woman” that the Ladies’ Paradise exudes illustrates it as an environment in which the most intimate desires of the universal woman are being allowed to express themselves. These desires are being expressed and indulged in to such an extreme degree that Madame Desforges can sense it in the air.
Themes
Meanwhile, Mouret tells Vallagnosc how ladies are at home at the Ladies’ Paradise; all they can’t do here is go to bed. Vallagnosc smiles but feels privately annoyed that Mouret is so enlivened by foolish women. When Denise and Madame Desforges come up the stairs, Mouret talks louder. He lays out the different types of women who have stolen from the Ladies’ Paradise and points at Jouve, who is pursuing a pregnant woman whom he suspects of stealing. Mouret turns to greet Madame Desforges, and she notices the longing way he looks at Denise.
Mouret’s statement that the only thing women can’t do at The Paradise is go to bed reveals how he feels about women. In making them feel at home, he leads women to believe that he understands them and validates them. However, at the end of the day, he doesn’t truly care about them. He uses them for the benefit of his store, and nothing else.
Themes
Denise takes Madame Desforges to the ladieswear department, where everyone is in uproar since the assistant buyer suddenly quit. While Denise goes to get coats for her to look at, Madame Desforges sits in front of a mirror and contemplates her aging appearance. Behind her, Clara and Marguerite gossip about the assistant buyer. Denise returns and shows coats to Madame Desforges. The older woman starts comparing herself to Denise, wondering how anyone could prefer such an “insignificant” peasant girl. Madame Desforges criticizes every coat Denise shows her and declares there’s nothing she wants.
This scene reveals that Madame Desforges’s anger at Mouret for starting another relationship does not come from a place of love for him, but rather from a place of vanity. Knowing that her physical beauty is fading as she ages, she feels that her position of power over men is threatened by younger women. Thus, Madame Desforges is concerned merely with appearances—a quality which makes her the perfect customer for the Ladies’ Paradise.
Themes
Suddenly, Madame Marty appears. Behind her, a salesman drags a chair piled with her purchases. Madame Marty greets Madame Desforges and then buys a striped coat. Madame Marty whispers to Madame Desforges that Clara is the girl Mouret is sleeping with. Madame Desforges says it is Denise—and anyone else who is willing. She meets Denise’s dignified gaze and feels ashamed. Marguerite then leads Madame Marty and Madame Desforges to the suits department, dragging Madame Marty’s chair of purchases.
When Madame Desforges and Denise make eye contact, something shifts between them. Madame Desforges—although Denise’s superior in terms of class—feels ashamed as she insults Denise, suggesting that, from the standpoint of moral goodness, Denise is Madame Desforges’s superior. In this way, the feud between Denise and Madame Desforges reveals that moral superiority has nothing to do with class.
Themes
As they walk through the store, Madame Desforges complains about how big it is. However, she is happy that Denise has to stand behind them, waiting. Madame Marty worries what her husband will say but keeps shopping. At one point, her chair can’t pass through a narrow display and has to be carried by two porters. In the furniture department, they run into Madame Guibal, who is returning curtains. The salesman, upset to be losing on his percentage, insinuates that Madam Guibal is dishonestly using the return feature to avoid renting curtains for a party. He tries to make her buy something else, but she refuses.
Madame Marty’s principles and sanity have been completely undone by the Ladies’ Paradise. She makes a ridiculous spectacle of herself, forcing a salesperson to drag a chair behind her that is so loaded with her purchases that it can’t be steered. This demise of Madame Marty shows that The Paradise—while pretending to cherish women—actually is the ruin of them: it turns them into consumers who cannot control themselves.
Themes
Seeing Madame Marty considering a table, Madame Guibal tells her that she can always return it. With this assurance, Madame Marty starts buying everything she wants, knowing she won’t return anything. They reach the suit department where Madame Desforges decides she wants a coat after all, forcing Denise to wait to take her back downstairs. Madame Guibal explains how she buys clothes, copies the patterns, and then returns them. Leaving the chair at the cash-desk, the ladies revisit all the departments and find Madame Bourdelais, who complains about the shop’s traps for children. Mouret—who overhears—smiles. Madame Desforges notices Mouret look at Denise, and she plots how she will get her revenge on him.
While Madame Guibal abuses the return policy to profit at the business’s expense, Madame Marty falls for the return policy, believing it to be for her benefit, but really falling into a trap in which the business profits. The ladies complain about The Paradise’s “traps,” but willingly fall into them. Madame Desforges plots to get her revenge on Mouret, again suggesting that she might be the woman who “avenges” the rest. However, she wants to avenge herself for losing Mouret to Denise, not to avenge all women for being deceived by The Paradise.
Themes
Meanwhile, Monsieur de Boves and Vallagnosc go to the lace department. Vallagnosc, feigning surprise, points out Madame de Boves, who is nearby. Madame de Boves leans against a pillar, exhausted from resisting buying anything. As they go up to her, Vallagnosc catches her trying to slip some lace up her sleeve. Dropping the lace, Madame de Boves straightens up haughtily when she sees that her husband is with Madame Guibal. The other ladies arrive, accompanied by Mouret, who is saying that Jouve had searched the pregnant woman only to find that her friend had done the stealing and left with the goods. Vallagnosc says that Mouret tempts customers to steal by filling the store with so much merchandise.
Madame de Boves is one of many customers who are tempted to steal from the countless enchanting goods piled around them. In this way, instead of encouraging good qualities, the Ladies’ Paradise unleashes vices. The universal “Woman”—whom Mouret exploits with his store’s schemes, claiming to know her perfectly—is either inherently full of vice, or Mouret has the wrong idea of women. His store nurtures the person with vices, but also creates new vices where none existed before.
Themes
By four o’clock, the late afternoon sun pours into the Ladies’ Paradise. The women devastated the store like “conquered territory.” Before departing, Madame Bourdelais goes to the buffet room again, and Madame Desforges plots to humiliate Denise somehow. Monsieur de Boves goes off with Madame Guibal while Madame de Boves departs, first getting a red balloon. At five o’clock, Madame Marty is still shopping, unable to tear herself away. When she finally leaves, she feels unhinged by the madness that came over her.
Although this description of the aftermath of the sale makes the women seem like the conquerors of The Paradise, in reality, they go away having been completely conquered by it. This is evidenced by Madame Marty, who has been driven crazy by the Paradise as though she is its torture victim. In this way, The Paradise hides its conquering of women by making them feel like the masters.
Themes
That night, a porter reminds Denise to go to Mouret’s office. When she enters, Mouret says that he’s very pleased with her and offers her the position of assistant buyer. Denise is confused but thrilled, and Mouret smiles at her reaction. As Denise thanks him, Lhomme and Albert walk in, lugging the day’s money bags containing 87,210 francs. Delighted, Mouret has them set the bags on his desk.
Denise—who is disliked by everyone in the ladieswear department—would never have been promoted if it wasn’t for Mouret’s preference for her. In this way, Denise becomes powerful at The Paradise not by being Mouret’s version of the exploitable woman, but by being something else entirely.
Themes
When Lhomme and Albert leave, Mouret tells Denise to take a handful of money, as much as she can hold. Underneath Mouret’s joke, Denise can read that Mouret loves her. She steps back, her heart beating fast. Mouret comes closer, still joking. Bourdoncle appears, so Denise thanks Mouret again and leaves.
Although he is joking, Mouret’s comment suggests that he likes Denise enough to throw money away on her. For the first time, Mouret feels that his money doesn’t matter because what he wants—at least in this moment—is to make Denise happy.
Themes
