American Gothic literature arose during the early years of America's founding, adopting some features of the European tradition and establishing others to capture the turmoil and anxiety present in America revolutionary. Like any great literature, it changed over time and these traditional clichés began to present themselves in new and unique ways that needed to be interpreted by the reader. Two tropes that have remained in Gothic texts but have been used very differently than when the genre was born are the woman in danger and the dominant, tyrannical male. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original EssayIn his short story "The Tartarus of the Maids," Herman Melville uses these characteristics of the Gothic to highlight the mistreatment of women in an industrialized society. In his work, Melville uses the Gothic trope of the troubled woman and applies it to working women who have become slaves to the patriarchal forces that permeate society. Traditionally, the woman in difficulty is depicted as a helpless woman, lacking the ability to act and control her own anguish and physical reactions, often caused by a male (Hamilton 08/31/2016). In Melville's “Tartarus of Maids,” the women have no agency because they are at the mercy of the factory owner, and therefore cannot act freely without fear of being removed from the factory. The mill is full of women who have become part of the industrialized process and are no longer valued as individuals, but as parts of a machine that can be easily replaced to keep the process moving. Inside the mill, the women are stripped of their singularity, which is represented when the narrator states, "On rows of empty-looking counters sat rows of empty-looking girls, with empty white satchels in their empty hands, all folded blankly,” completely devoid of characteristics that distinguish one woman from another (Melville 5). Furthermore, the women are deprived of their voices, it is not clear whether due to tiredness or the orders given by the owner .The narrator notes: “Not a syllable was breathed. Nothing but the low, steady, dominating hum of the iron animals was banished from that place” (6). of the factory places them in the position of women in difficulty because they do not have the power to speak or act according to their will. They must instead remain silent to continue working, and this dilemma is representative of a larger silence taking place within of the company. Throughout Melville's text, the mill owner is the emblem of the tyrannical man of the Gothic, symbolizing patriarchy as a whole. . This gothic trope is often used in reference to a male-female relationship in which the male is highly domineering and oppressive (Hamilton 08/31/2016). First, the factory owner is in a position of power over women, automatically placing him in the gothic trope of a dominant male character. He also asserts his dominance through his actions. He exercises complete control over his workers, determining when they work, how often, and for how long: “We want nothing but permanent workers: twelve hours a day, day after day, during the three hundred and sixty-five days, except Sunday, Thanksgiving, and fast days. This is our rule” (Melville 13). The owner's demands for intense labor productivity demonstrate the control he has over the women he employs, just as social values ​​established by patriarchal forces dictate what is and is not 2016.