Exciting 38

The love story of "Au bonheur des dames" is certainly the least developed part of the book because not only Zola is not a writer with rose water, but in addition, the aim of the book is especially to describe the suffocation of small businesses by department stores and the excitement generated by these.
These shops described as dark and small make you understand the anguish of their owners. Why dark? Not only because of their size, but because of the threatening shadow of Octave store. The unstoppable success of the latter is due to his understanding of women of the time (and today) attracted by the extravagant exhibition, by weight, more sumptuous fabrics as each other.
The description of each stage, and the tea room, shows that Octavian has thought of everything to make her shop a unique place where visitors, came out of curiosity, end up buying compulsively and even fly, even if they have the money to afford anything they want. It is no longer useful purchase, it is of eroticism, the description of the great pleasures always renewed. Going back to the love story, it's there to calm things down, through the chaste Denise, amounting in all its purity, facing this world ever wish unfulfilled.