Au Bonheur des Dames
The Paradise of Women ( in the original: Au Bonheur des Dames ) by French author Émile Zola appeared in 1884 as the eleventh novel of the twenty -volume novel cycle The Rougon Macquart - Natural and Social History of a Family under the Second Empire.
Description
Zola started on 28 May 1882 of the transcript and finished it on January 25, 1883. Preprint The feuilleton in the Gil Blas took place on 17 December 1882 to 1 March 1883.
Based on the story of the protagonist Denise, a saleswoman who comes to Paris from the provinces and in the paradise of women finds employment, growth and the structure of the department store and at the same time the decline of small-scale retail trade a complete Parisian neighborhood is described. The looming in the novel's characters are actively or passively connected to the expanding department store. As an employee, customer or fitting retailers. Particular attention is next to the shop assistant Denise the owner of the store, Octave Mouret, and his life in the fine Parisian society and its business practices. Model for this character were the entrepreneur Auguste Heriot, who founded the Paris department store Grands Magasins du Louvre and Aristide Boucicaut, founder of Le Bon Marché. In order to represent the struggle of the small retailer against the emerging large department store, Zola operation gewohntermaßen extensive economic and sociological studies, he interviewed managers, department managers and sales assistants of the said department stores. His fictional giant department store should be a perfect example, so he took on the description of the management of the company Le Bon Marché as a model, while the department store Grands Magasins du Louvre Although organized it worse, in the presentation of goods but appeared superior.
Zola's 380 -page documentation is maintained and available in the Paris National Library for research purposes. You already describes modern marketing strategies such as the use of loss leaders, which are sold at cost price and the distribution of company balloons to children who are thus made to advertising carriers.
The author succeeds in already by the description of the facade of the department store to arouse the curiosity of the interior of the reader. Zola provides an insight into the living conditions of the purchase domestics of his time and sets out how the customer or customers mainly be seduced to buy.
The writer draws in his novel a naturalistic picture of the practices and working conditions of the middle class in France in the late 19th century.