‘The dream machine’ looks at the role of the 'machine' in the writing of Zola. Many of Zola’s novels are organized round a machine (like the distilling machine in L’Assommoir) or a great central image or entity that functions like a machine (the food markets in The Belly of Paris, the coal mine in Germinal). In The Ladies’ Paradise the ‘machine’ is the department store, inspired by the Bon Marché, Paris’s first such store. A symbol of capitalism, the Second Empire, and the modern city, it is emblematic of consumer culture and contemporary changes in gender attitudes and class relations, representing modernity and ‘progress’. Shopping became a new leisure activity, allowing middle-class women to venture into public spaces and enjoy the new culture of the commodity; but in the process they were themselves commodified. Octave Mouret, the store’s owner-manager, masterfully exploits the desires of his female customers. But when he falls in love with his salesgirl Denise Baudu, he discovers that she resists commodification.
Is the quest to eat healthy a route to enhancing consumer’s food security?
