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'''''The 120 Days of Sodom or the School of Freedoms''''' (''Les 120 journées de Sodome ou l'école du libertinage'') is
== History ==
Sade wrote '''The 120 Days of Sodom''' in the space of thirty-seven days in [[1784]] whilst he was locked up in the [[Bastille]]. Being short of writing materials, he wrote it in tiny writing on a continuous, twelve-metre long roll of paper. When the Bastille was stormed and looted on [[July 14]], [[1789]] during the height of the [[French Revolution]], Sade believed the work was lost forever and later wrote that he "wept tears of blood" over it's loss.
However, the long roll of paper on which it was written was later found hidden in his cell, having escaped the attentions of the looters. It was first published in [[1904]] by a [[Berlin]] psychiatrist Dr. Iwan Bloch (although to avoid controversy he used a pseudonym.) It was not until the latter half of the twentieth-century that it became more widely available in countries such as [[Britain]], the [[USA]] and [[France]].
== Attitudes ==
Due to the extreme content of the ''120 Days of Sodom'', with near-endless descriptions of [[coprophilia]], [[paedophilia]], [[rape]], [[torture]] and [[murder]], many people - both professional literary critics and the general public - understandably regard it as disgusting, gruesome and difficult to read.
It does have it's defenders however. The thorough categorization of all manner of sexual [[fetishes]] has lead some to draw parallels between it and [[Kraft-Ebbing]]'s ''[[Psychopathia Sexualis]]'', and the man who first had it published, Dr. Bloch, claimed it had ''"scientific importance...to doctors, jurists, and anthropologists."'' [[Feminist]] writer [[Simone de Beauvoir]] wrote an essay titled ''Must We Burn Sade?'', defending the ''120 Days of Sodom'' when, in [[1955]], French authorities were planning on destroying it and three other majors works by Sade.
On the other hand, another feminist writer, [[Andrea Dworkin]], condemed it as "vile pornography" and it's author as as the embodiment of [[misogyny]].
Some people - whether for or against the novel's literary value - would not even classify it as 'pornography' because the sex is repetitive, not described in particular detail and predominantly involves sexual activities many would either find either unstimulating or downright abhorrent.
== Synopsis ==
<center>''[[Wikipedia:Content_disclaimer|Content Disclaimer]] - the remainder of this article features graphic descriptions of extreme sexual activity.</center>
''The 120 Days Of Sodom'' has been described as a [[gothic]] novel. It is set in a remote [[medieval]] castle, high in the mountains and surrounded by forests, detached from the rest of the world and not set at any specific point in time (although it is implied at the start that the events in the story take place either during or shortly after the [[Thirty Years' War]], which lasted from [[1618]] to [[1648]])
The novel takes place over five months, November to March. Four wealthy perverts lock themselves in a castle, the Château de Silling, along with a number of victims and accomplices. They intend on listening to various tales of depravity from four veteran [[prostitutes]], which will inspire them to engage in similar activities with their victims.
It is a remarkably well planned story, with a strict timetable of events drawn out in advance. It is not, however, complete. Only the first section is written in detail. After that, the remaining three parts are written as a draft, in note form, with Sade's footnotes to himself still present in most translations. Either at the outset, or during the writing of the work, Sade had evidently decided he would not be able to complete it in full and elected to write out the remaining three-quarters in brief and finish it later (he obviously did not get a chance.)
The story does betray some [[black humor]], and Sade seems almost lighthearted in his introduction, referring to us as "friend reader." In this introduction he contradicts himself, at one point insisting that we should not be horrified by the 600 passions outlined in the story because each of us has his own tastes, but at the same time going out of his way to warn us of the horrors that lay ahead and that suggesting we should have our doubts about continuing.
== Characters ==
The four principal characters are incredibly wealthy men, who are [[libertine]], incredibly ruthless, and ''"...lawless and without religion, whom crime amused, and whose only interest lay in his passions...and had nothing to obey but the imperious decrees of his perfidious lusts."'' It is no coincidence that they are authority figures in terms of their occupations. Sade despised [[religion]] and authority and in many of his works he enjoyed mocking them by portraying priests, bishops, judges and the like as sexual perverts and criminals.
They are:
* ''The Duc de Blangis'' - aged fifty, an [[aristocrat]] who acquired his wealth by poisoning his mother for the purposes of inheritence, prescribing the same fate to his sister when she found out about his plot. Blangis is described as being tall, strongly built and highly sexually potent, although it is emphasised that he is a complete coward, and proud of it too.
* ''The Bishop'' - Blangis' brother. He is forty-five, a scrawny and weak man, ''"with a nasty mouth."'' He is passionate of [[anal sex]] and, even when having sex with women and girls, he refuses to have vaginal intercourse with them.
* ''The Président de Curval'' - aged sixty, a tall and lank man, ''"frightfully dirty about his body and attaching voluptuousness thereto."'' He is a judge and used to enjoy handing out death sentences to defendents he knew to be innocent.
* ''Durcet'' - aged fifty-three, a [[banker]] described as short, pale and effeminate.
Their accomplices are:
* Four prostitutes, middle-aged women who will relate anecdotes of their depraved careers to inspire the four principle characters into similar acts of depravity.
* Eight studs (or 'fuckers') who are chosen solely on the basis of how big their penises are.
The victims who will eventually be sacrificed are:
* The daughters of the four principle characters, who they have been sexually abusing for years.
* Eight boys and eight girls aged from twelve to fifteen. All have been kidnapped and chosen because of their beauty. They are also all virgins, and the four libertines plan on deflowering them over the course of events.
* Four elderly women, chosen for their ugliness to stand in contrast to the children
There are also several cooks and female servants, those in the latter category later being dragged into the proceedings.
== Plot Summary ==
{{spoiler}}
As mentioned above, the novel is set out to a strict timetable. For each of the first four months, November to February, one of the prostitutes takes turns to tell five-stories each day, relating to the fetishes of their most interesting clients, and thus totalling 150 stories for each month (in theory at least; Sade made a few mistakes as he was apparantly unable to go back and review his work as he went along.) These passions are seperated into four categories - simple, complex, criminal and murderous - escalating in complexity and savagery.
* '''November; the simple passions''' - these anecdotes are the only ones written in detail. They would not really be considered 'simple' to many people, involving a great of perversions, such as men who like to masturbate over children or who eat excrement. As they do throughout the story-telling sections, the four libertines - Blangis, the Bishop, Curval and Durcet - indulge in activities similiar to those they've heard with the kidnapped children and their daughters.
*'''December; the complex passions''' - these anecdotes involve more extravagant perversions, such as men who have vaginal sex with female children or indulge in [[flagellation]] and [[sacreligious]] activitiesm such as having sex with nuns whilst watching [[Mass (liturgy)|Mass]] being performed. The female children are deflowered vaginally during the evening orgies with other elements of that month's stories - such as whipping - occasionally thrown in.
*'''January; the criminal passions''' - tales are told of perverts who indulge in criminal activities, albeit stopping short of murder. They include men who [[anal sex|sodomize]] girls as young as three, men who prostitute their own daughters to other perverts and watch the proceedings, and others who mutilate women by tearing off fingers or burning them with red-hot pokers. During the month, the four libertines begin sodomizing the sixteen male and female children, and these children, and the other victims, are treated more brutally as time goes on, with regular beatings and whippings.
*'''February; the murderous passions''' - the final 150 anecdotes are those involving murder. Even though they are summarized, the various tales are often difficult to read, involving perverts who indulge in activities such as skinning children alive or disembowelling pregnant women. The final individual mentioned - the 'Hell Libertine' - [[masturbation|masturbates]] whilst watching fifteen teenage girls being simultaneously tortured to death. During this month, the libertines brutally kill three of the four daughters they have between them, along with four of the female children and two of the male ones. The murder of one of the girls, 15-year-old Augustine, is described in great detail, with the tortures she is subjected to including having flesh stripped from her limbs and her vagina being mutilated, making it an incredibly discomforting segment to read, even in the midst of all the other horrors of the novel.
*'''March''' - this is the shortest of the segments, Sade summarizing things even more by this final point in the novel. He lists the days on which the surviving children and many of the other characters are disposed of, although he does not give any details. Instead he leaves a footnote to himself pointing out his intention on detailing things more in a future revision.
At the end of the novel, Sade draws up a list of the characters with a note of those who were killed and when, and also those who survived. Many have drawn comparisons with this obsessive categorizing of victim numbers with the way the [[Nazis]] kept records of the victims of the [[Holocaust]]. The obedience to incredibly strict rules and demands of absolute submission the four libertines insist they receive from their captives is also similar to the draconian regulations given to prisoners in [[concentration camps]].
== Other information ==
In 1975, [[Pier Paolo Pasolini]] turned the book into a movie, ''[[Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma]]'' (''Salo, or The 120 Days of Sodom'').
The movie is set in a [[Nazi]] environment,
== Also See ==
*[[Philosophy in the Bedroom]] and [[Juliette]], two other works by Sade
*[[Marquis de Sade]]
*[[sadism]]
== References ==
*''The 120 Days of Sodom and Other Writings'', Grove Press; Reissue edition (1987) [[ISBN]]: 0802130127
*
▲==External links==
*[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073650/ Salò o le 120 giornate di Sodoma at the IMDB]
▲* [http://www.monsieurlesix.be/bibliography/eng120-0.html Online text, English translation]
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