American Gothic literature arose during the early years of America's founding, adopting some features of the European tradition and establishing others in order to capture the turmoil and anxiety present in revolutionary America. As with all great literature, it changed over time and these traditional tropes began to present themselves in new and unique ways that needed to be interpreted by the reader. Two tropes remained in Gothic texts, but were used in ways very different from those at the origin of the genre: the woman in distress and the domineering, tyrannical man. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay In his short story “The Handmaid's Tale,” Herman Melville uses these characteristics of the Gothic in order to highlight the mistreatment of women in an industrialized society. In his work, Melville uses the Gothic trope of the woman in distress and applies it to working women who have become slaves to the patriarchal forces that permeate society. Traditionally, the distressed woman is described as a helpless woman who lacks agency and control over her distress and physical reactions, often caused by a man (Hamilton 08/31/2016). In Melville's “The Tartarus of the Handmaids,” the women lack freedom to act because they are at the mercy of the factory owner and therefore cannot act freely without fear of being kicked out of the factory. The paper 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 easily be replaced in order to keep the process moving. In the mill, women are stripped of their uniqueness, which is represented when the narrator states: "In front of rows of empty-looking counters sat rows of empty-looking girls, with blank, white files in their hands empty, all folding in white. white paper,” devoid of any element that distinguishes one woman from another (Melville 5). Furthermore, women are deprived of their voice, whether due to fatigue or orders transmitted by the owner is unclear. The narrator notes: “Not a syllable was breathed. Nothing could be heard other than the dull, regular, dominant hum of the iron animals. The human voice was banned from the premises” (6). The silence of women within the factory places them in the position of women in distress because they do not have the capacity to speak or act according to their will. Instead, they must remain silent to keep their jobs, and this dilemma is representative of a broader silence taking place within society. Throughout Melville's text, the stationer's owner is emblematic of the tyrannical man of the Gothic, symbolizing patriarchy as a whole. . This gothic trope is often used in regards to a male-female relationship in which the man is very dominant and oppressive (Hamilton 08/31/2016). First and foremost, the mill owner is in a position of power over women, which automatically places him in the gothic trope of a dominant male character. He also asserts his dominance through his actions. He exercises total control over his workers, determining when they work, how often and for how long: "We only want stable workers: twelve hours a day, day after day, for the three hundred and sixty-five days, with the exception of Sundays, Thanksgiving and fast days. It’s our rule” (Melville 13). Owner's productivity requirements 2016.