Desire Presentation

Desire was a powerful representation of social isues and evocative of people's tendency to value external beauty over what's within.

The characters are unnamed- only the personal pronouns he and she are ndicatives of their identity, signifying th univrsality of the experience- that it happens or could be happened to any male or female.

The central theme of the story is the title itself-desire. It falls under two shades of meaning, first is the intense wanting for something whle the second refers to a strong sexual appetite.

Desire focuses on the story of a woman whose physical appearance was both gift and a curse.

She was homely. A very broad forehead gave her face an unpleasant masculine look. Her eyes which were small, started at the corners and made many of her acquaintances wonder if perchance she had a fewdrops of celestial blood in her veins. Her nose was broad and flat, and its nostrills were always dilated, as if breathing were an effort. Her mouth, with its thick lips, was a long, straight gash across her face made angualar by her usually big jaws.

But nature as if ashamed of of her meanness in fashioning the face, moulded a body of unusual beauty. From her neck to her small feet, she was prefect.

Her bust was full, her breast rose up like twin roses in full bloom. Her waist slim as young girl's, her hips seemed to have stolen the curve of the crescent moon.

Her legs with their trim ankles reminded one of those lifelessthings in shop windows displaying the latet silks tockings.

Her face is nowhere close to a dream. But her body was a source of aesthetic qualities which she hated.

But she hated her body- hated beacause it made men look at her with an unbeautiful light in their eyes.

She hates the body because of its affect on men. She hates it for it seemed to own her, and not the other way around, because nothing else abou her mattered to men than her body does.

Men see her as source of desire- the desire to take that heavenly ensemble of curves and flesh.

Men looked at her face and turned their eyes away; they looked at her body and were enslaved.

This changed the perspective of the protaginist as regards to men as far as her body is concerned. she decides to hide her physique with the hopes of extinguishing the "unbeatiful light" that cast from the men's eyes.

Latorena exposed men's vulnerability in this part

of the story. Her generalization of men as being

enthralled beautifully bodies was manifested

by her usage of " single eyes"

and "married eyes"

She starts wearing loose dresses then, and she succeded. But she still has an unfulfilled desire- the desire to be loved. For now the men no longer care for her, without the body they adore, she was nothing but a "homely face" and a mass of unshapely flesh.

Thus, the two desires were manifested the sexual desire was embodied by the general male population while the feeling of intense wanting was symbolized by the protagonist's desire for love.

In the modern society it is still surprisingly happening, women were known for this vulnerability romanticism and men for their infidelity and idealism.

Latorena's protagonist was a waiting character. And while she was, she wrote and scribbled and her works found their way to a publication, and eventually captured the attention of a man from the west.

They had a brief epistolary correspondece, for they soon decided to meet personally.

Of course the man were shocked to see her but he soon grew comfortable in her company due to her wit and and sensibility. They became friends and the homely girl enjoyed thinking that her apperance meant little.

It was their third meeting when she decides to reveal the hidden beauty, thinking that it would also matter little to him because he tells her he likes her.

She is very confident that this man could be trusted. When he sees her, he's in total awe. But he quickly regain his composure tha gave the homely woman more faith in him.

She heaved in a deep sigh. She was right. She had found a man to whom her body mattered little if anything at all. He had learned to like her for herself.

However, it's their fourth ( and most probably the last) meeting, the woman again displays the body that causemen to be enslaved. And this time, she gets the biggest surprise- the shatteing of a dream.

"I... I... love..." he stammered after some moment, as if impelled by an irresistible force. Then he stopped

The small eyes that slanted at the corners were almost beautiful with a tender and soft light. So he loved he. Had he learned not only to like her but to love her? For herself. And the half finished confession found an echo in the heart of the woman who was starved for love.

"Yes..." there was a pleading note in her voice

He swallowed hard. "I LOVE... YOUR BODY". He finished with a thick voice. And the blue eyes flared with the draded, hateful light.

Desire depicts beauty as an instrument of dillusionment and a bifacial thing.