Don Juan Research Paper

Don Juan is a name synonymous with seduction. Today, a young man popular with young women may be called a ‘regular Don Juan’ and many bachelors could only hope for that comparison. This modern colloquialism is rooted in the names’ history. For example, Moliere’s Don Juan is a libertine. He is willing to break hearts, wedge between couples, and lie in his pursuit of pleasure. This zealous seduction raises the question of where Don Juan finds pleasure: In the act of seduction or in the lovemaking that is supposed to follow? If, as Albert Camus suggests, Don Juan insists on satiety, what is it that satisfies him? This paper seeks to establish that Don Juan finds more pleasure in the act of seduction that he does from the lovemaking that may or …show more content…
Then, I will study how Don Juan lives a life of seduction. Next, I will demonstrate that failing to seduce does not bother Don Juan as he finds pleasure in the attempt. Finally, I will present a counterargument rooted in Sganarelle and why it is a misunderstanding. Throughout this paper, I will refer to Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus as his description of Don Juan as a life-loving man embracing the absurd condition of existence helps illuminate my argument.
Don Juan openly admits he is a “slave to beauty.” He wishes to pursue beauty outside of the societal conventions, religious norms, and moral constraints that suggest his actions are wrong. He claims every “pretty woman has the right to attract us” and rejects the convention that he should remain constant to the first object of his fancy. When speaking about the pursuit of beautiful women early in the text, Don Juan focuses more on the seduction than the sex. He describes with passion how it is “Deliciously sweet to lay siege to a young heart.” Don Juan enjoys the daily progress of weakening the influence of religious and social morals on virginal women until they are as …show more content…
Don Juan himself speaks passionately about seduction in his first long dialogue-- more passionately than he ever speaks of lovemaking. Seduction is the life of Don Juan. If Don Juan lived for sexual gratification, after the shipwreck he could visit a prostitute before charming the country girls. For Don Juan, seduction does not have to lead to sex. For that is a hope and hoping is concerned with the future but Don Juan lives in the present. Sganarelle may see his master as sex-focused but he looks to the end of seduction and not the act itself. If Don Juan were a hunter, tracking the animals would be a reward in itself. Killing an animal would be a bonus and mounting the trophy in a study would be living in the past. Don Juan lives for pleasure, but he is not a satyriasis. His pleasure is in the act of