How does Herman Melville use imagery in Great Short Works of Herman Melville?

In The Paradise of Bachelors and the Tartarus of Maids, the narrator's visit to the paper factory uses starkly sexual imagery, obviously beginning with the narrator's employment as a seedsman, to describe landscapes and mechanical operations, concluding that the factory is an example of patriarchal domination of women. The story is obvious social commentary made interesting by imagery and the spanning of two continents—England and America—and a comparison of their cultures.