On Abstract Desire -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 04:44:26 01/21/08 Mon
Author: Betsy Peters
Subject: On Abstract Desire

In "The Metamorphsis of Desire," Girard writes that there is an inverse relationship between the strength of desire and the importance of the object to the extent that the desire is applied to an abstract object. If we apply this consideration to the case of Adam and Eve in the garden, we learn something very revealing about the fruit on the tree--it is an abstract and even unimportant object, while the strength of their desire "to be like God knowing good and evil" grows ever stronger. Adam and Eve have appropriated Satan's own imiative desire to be like God, and in doing so, I suppose Satan could have lead them astray with many other sorts of objects other than inciting them to eat the fruit of one of the trees in the midst of the garden. For example, God rested on the seventh day, but he commanded man to tend and keep the garden. Satan could have tempted Adam and Eve: "if you rest here in the garden instead of cultivating, you will be like God." The object is arbitrary--the desire, strong.

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