Tracing the lines of desire in Lolita, Death in Venice and Pornografia

Abstract

In Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, a passion ridden Troilus tells his Cressida: 'This is the monstrosity in love, lady, that the will is infinite, and the execution confined, that the desire is boundless and the act a slave to limit.' Through this poetic quote, human desire can be seen to be doubly boundless: man will be dissatisfied when he receives what he craves, whilst at the same time remaining capable of wanting it all. Of course, if we are capable of infinite desire, then it must follow that it is possible for us to desire anything that we can imagine or conceive. lndeed, the range, width and depth of what a human can desire is both almost infinitely flexible as well as highly personal. We can therefore assume that desire can take almost any direction as it does not just stem from one non-malleable need, but from a compound of different factors the range of which can be endless. Despite the wide spectrum of possible desired objects, society has placed a number of restrictions on man's desires and what he - or she - can or cannot pursue based on both tradition as well as for the sake of order in society itself. Through Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and Witold Gombrowicz' Pornografia this thesis will focus on a specific type of forbidden desire (the desire of the old for the young) and aims to explore how this desire is depicted in literature and film.