es its newness, and the women must again empty their purses in the attempt to buy back their lost virginity (4). Through this, Mouret throws the women into a vicious cycle of endless purchasing, flaunting his power over all women.Each character in The Ladies Paradise derives power from separate but related entities. Octave Mouret extracts power from the knowledge of what his customers want. He knows that they want to buy goods and merchandise at low prices, but he also knows that the root of that desire is the need to display their instinctual behaviors. He builds his department store accordingly, as a place that seems to cater to women, leading them into a false sense of power. In the shops, Woman was queen, adulated and humoured in her weaknesses, surrounded with attentions, she reigned there as an amorous queen whose subjects trade on her, and who pays for every whim with a drop of her own blood (77). The blood represents the money women spend at the department stores, but the total spent on commodities amounts to a great deal more than a drop. Zola makes it known that Mouret is out to manipulate women into using their own sense of power against themselves. A ruthless and calculating business tycoon, Mouret exploits the female desire without the slightest misgiving. They all belonged to him, they were his property and he belonged to none of them. When he had extracted his fortune and his pleasure from them, he would throw them on the rubbish heap for those who could still make a living out of them (77). Mourets calculated actions deceive all but one obstinate salesgirl, Denise Baudu.Denise, a plain and oft-ridiculed salesperson in the ladies wear department derives her power from her virginity. Her unwillingness to submit to Mourets cries of love gives her power over all of the workers in the department store. Contrary to the inherent human selfishness, Denise uses her power to improve working conditions for the workers, including ma...
