Incomplete Objects and Unfulfilled Desire: Hubert Selby Jr.’s Requiem for a Dream

• Authors: Muniowski Łukasz
• Languages of publication: EN

Abstracts

EN

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 significance 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.

Keywords

EN

Hubert Selby Jr.,; transgressive fiction,; desire,; the body

• Publisher: Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw
• Journal: Anglica. An International Journal of English Studies
• Year: 2019
• Issue: 28/1
• Pages: 113-124

Contributors

author

Muniowski Łukasz

• University of Warsaw

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