Aisling Campbell – Narrative and Desire in The Hundred and Twenty Days of Sodom
 
THE LETTER 02 (Autumn 1994) pages 69-86
 
The first symbolic binary language of “fort” and “da” 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...