Enclosed Exhibitions : Claustrophobia, Balloons, and the Department Store in Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames

Abstract

This chapter examines spatial confinement in the eponymous department store of Émile Zola’s Au Bonheur des Dames. A close reading of one of the novel’s sale chapters reveals that the store director mobilizes several strategies to engender a suffocating atmosphere at the temporary exhibition. Linking literary space and publicity, the chapter argues that the store’s promotional balloons act as ephemeral, yet dynamic advertisements that dismantle interior and exterior space. The balloons instantiate the ephemeral quality of the sales since, in spite of their brief duration, they produce a lasting visual effect that problematizes a spatial framework opposing interior and exterior spaces. This reading suggests that publicity contributes to the claustrophobia of commerce in Zola’s fictional ephemeral exhibitions.