A beleza e sensualidade que emana do sadismo e crueldade: o conto a tatuagem de Tanizaki Jun’ichirô

Abstract

This article examines the construction of beauty and sensuality through an aesthetic approach which emphasizes cruelty, sadism and perversion, in the works of Tanizaki Jun’ichirô. Such an analysis is centered on the presentation and detailed discussion of several passages of the tale entitled The Tattoo, first published in 1910. The passages show that elements usually connected to dreadful feelings, such as sadism and cruelty, are intrinsically related to classical aesthetic values in the tale. In fact, the ultimate state of sensuality and beauty reached by the heroin by the end of The Tattoo is a direct result of secret and dormant desires of sadism, cruelty and perversion, which emerge through the intervention of the tattooer.