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Is Mall Really a Sacred Place?

Most people go to the mall, enjoying the pleasure of shopping without paying much
attention to the mall itself. Jon Pahl, however, startles the reader as he brings to us a completely
new perception of that place. In the article The Mall as Sacred Space, Pahl gives us the image
of the mall as a sacred space, a place where shoppers, playing the roles of pilgrims, go to
practice their religions and are induced by many religious symbols employed there. Although
there are some elements of truth and interesting facts in the article, Pahl does not succeed in
achieving his purpose because of some mistakes in his argument, his uses of emotional appeal
and his inconsistency in the article.
Throughout the article, Pahl spends a great deal of time attempting to assign the sacred
function to the mall and back up his arguments by quoting generously word of Zepp, a religious
professor and Rouse, a mall designer. At the beginning of the article, both of them assert that the
shopping mall is more than a business place; it is, indeed, a sacred venue built-in with spirit
and faith (Pahl 295). Pahl goes on his article by stating that people often think of the mall as a
place where people can do whatever they want; however, as Pahl points out, it is the very owner
of the mall that can decides on who and what people could do there (Pahl 295). Pahl also claims
that by using basic equations, such as water, lighting, vegetation, malls are able to convey the
spirit of business through the process of disorientation and reorientation (Pahl 295). It is
those sensory-stimulated elements that, according to Pahl, make the shopper feel lost and
easily succumb to the temptation of spending. Pahl then diverts his discussion to how different
genders react differently to the malls. Women, as he points out, are likely to be enticed by the
ideal body images that are often displayed at the malls, where as men often tend to say no the
delights of those places. Pahl takes his argument further when saying that malls maybe

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functioning better as churches than are many building baring the name (Pahl 298). The article
then ends with Pahls warning that consumers are misled into draining their wallets by the true
purpose often masked by the malls.
In the article, Pahl constantly asserts that through the use of water, lighting, vegetation,
etc., malls have been successful in adopting the sacred symbols into their design. A large part of
the article is devoted to explaining how those elements help make the place sacred. Water. For
example, is thought of by Pahl as a purification that can cleanse shopper of any filthiness and
that can dissolve the boundaries (Pahl 295). The use of light, also pointed out by Pahl, is aimed
to resemble vitality and energy in a religious sense (Pahl 296). Although there is some certain
religious reference in those objects, Pahl seems to go too far in assuming that those materials
really help to turn the mall into a holy place, and hence make a faulty cause-effect relationship in
his argument. There is no guarantee that those symbols are intentionally used with religious
purpose; in fact, many malls are built that way so as to be in accordance with the architecture
principles and business tactic that aims at luring more customers. Those decorations are meant to
make the mall more eye-pleasing, and hence make the shopping experience more pleasurable and
comfortable for the shoppers. Therefore, it can be said that Pahl has not been successful in his
attempt to drive the readers into believing his position by overusing those arguments.
Pahl also is not successful in his generous using of emotional appeal throughout the
article. First of all, Pahl relies too much on his using of heavy-loaded words and religious
terminology that meant to sway the readers perception. Pilgrims, for instance, has been quoted
several times in his article to refer to the shoppers; whereas, there seem to be not much analogy
between the pilgrims, the people who take a long journey to a religious place for a religious
reason, and those shoppers who drive to the mall simply for enjoyment and fulfilling their

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satisfaction. Secondly, Pahl really abuses his uses of personal experience and feeling and then
applys them to the readers. The fact that he often experienced headache in his childhood after a
long time in a mall, for instance, has nothing to do with the process of disorientation that he
says most shoppers have to go through in the mall. Moreover, Pahls excessive quoting words of
Zepp and Rouse does not help to make his argument more emotional appealing and persuasive.
By contrast, it lessens the accountability and objectivity of the article as both of them are
religious-favored people, one is a religious study professor and the other is a Protestant follower
(Pahl 295).
Finally, another weakness in Pahls article is the inconsistency in his position. On the one
hand, Pahl attempts to associate the mall with it religious functions and elaborates on how that
sacred place provides shoppers with unity, devotion, love, happiness (Pahl 296). Pahl, on the
other hand, warns the shopper of the profit-driving purpose often masked by malls and concludes
that those promises are just lies (Pahl 298). Clearly, everything has its two sides, but Pahl should
have been consistent in his position in order to make his argument more persuasive to the
readers. Also, Pahl seem to get off his topic a couple of times throughout his article. The
discussion of how different sexes react to the mall, for example, seems to have nothing to do
with his intention of proving the mall as a holy place; thus, those diversions often confuse the
readers in terms of what points the author is trying to convey in his article.
Skipping through the article the first time, readers may be impressed at some eye-opening
facts Pahl has discovered in the mall that they may not have recognized. However, after careful
analysis of the article, readers may realize that several problems arise in Pahls argument and that
he does not seem to be successful in achieving his purpose. Although there may be some
religious factors in the way mall is designed, Pahl seems to go too far in persuading the readers

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into believing that it is a wholly sacred place as he does believe. It is, after all, better for us to
simply keep the appropriate level of perspective: mall is just a place of shopping, not a place of
religion.