Open AccessIncomplete Objects and Unfulfilled Desire: Hubert Selby Jr.’s Requiem for a Dream
Author(s) -
Łukasz Muniowski
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
anglica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.101
H-Index - 1
ISSN - 0860-5734
DOI - 10.7311/0860-5734.28.1.09
Subject(s) - dream , happiness , art , pound (networking) , psychoanalysis , art history , aesthetics , psychology , computer science , social psychology , neuroscience , world wide web
Sara Goldfarb and her son Harry, two central characters in Hubert Selby Jr.’s Requiem for a Dream, are both addicts. The objects of their desire, a television set and a bag of drugs, are of particular signifi cance because they cannot be enjoyed without a transmitter – an antenna and a syringe. The article presents these objects as incomplete and the desire attached to them as misplaced. What the characters are really looking for is something beyond, “a pound of pure” happiness. The world in Requiem for a Dream is purely physical, so only what is done to the body can be felt and understood by the characters. In the end, Sara and Harry both become incomplete like the objects they are pursuing.