Narrative and desire in The Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom.

The first symbolic binary language of "fort" and "da"[1] introduces the subject to the world of the signifier, in which desire is implicated. The signifying chain implies an historicization of events - "fort" is significant only in terms of "da", which has preceded it - and vice versa. Language and narrative attempt to articulate desire, but something always escapes, a beyond of language. Without language, the question of desire would remain closed - yet through language the subject eludes an ultimate satisfying of desire, which would bring death.…