Between Progress and Ruin: Modernity and Capitalism in The Ladies’ Paradise

Authors

• Kassandra Naely Rodrigues Santos Universidade Federal de Pelotas https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3347-1928
• Milena Hoffmann Kunrath Universidade Federal de Pelotas (UFPEL) https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3335-1152

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17058/agora.v28i1.21332

Keywords:

Naturalism, capitalism, urban modernization, consumption, commerce, Émile Zola

Abstract

This article analyzes the representation of urban and commercial modernization in nineteenth-century Paris in the novel The Ladies’ Paradise (1883), by Émile Zola. Inserted within the context of Naturalism and the Les Rougon-Macquart series, the novel portrays the rise and expansion of department stores during the French Second Empire, highlighting the economic, social, and cultural transformations brought about by the consolidation of modern capitalism. The analysis focuses on the opposition between traditional commerce and large department stores, examining how the narrative represents both the fascination exerted by consumption and urban progress and the exploitation of labor, social precariousness, and the decline of small merchants. The study also discusses the influence of determinist and Darwinist theories on Zola’s narrative construction, especially through animalistic and mechanical metaphors that depict capitalism as an expansive and devouring force. Furthermore, the article examines the presence of different social groups in the novel, emphasizing the ambiguities of capitalist modernity, which simultaneously produces economic development and social exclusion. Thus, the study concludes that the novel constructs a critical and ambivalent representation of Parisian modernization, articulating progress, consumption, and social conflict in the formation of nineteenth-century bourgeois society.  

References

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