C RITICAL EXEGESIS of Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids has focused on the longer of the two sketches. The first seems to acquire its significance largely through illumination thrown back on it by the tale of the maids, a work which could easily stand alone. There is little argument about the levels of meaning in the latter: in the general view, E. H. Eby's comment that the tale presents both the biological and social burdens of women is still valid. Related to the first part of the diptych, the two levels of meaning are appropriately extended or modified. For Eby, the maids' drudgery and female subjugation to biological processes contrast with the bachelors' happy life and male freedom.' For C. G. Hoffmann, W. R. Thompson, and R. H. Fogle, further dimensions are apparent: a distinction between Old World leisure and New World industrialism;2 an indictment of the moral weaknesses of both civilizations;3 an attack on mass production, the publishing business, and some theories of American democracy,4 with the first tale serving to point up comparison and contrast. Most critics feel that the diptych is technically unsuccessful. The second tale is bristling . . . with sexual symbols,5 but when the allegory is correlated with the first tale it seems to illustrate some tritely obvious fact of life. Melville's serious critical purpose in linking the civilizations of Europe and America does not come through because of a structural flaw.' His obliaue approach ob-