The 120 Days of Sodom - Characters

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 inheritance, 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 (l’Évêque) – Blangis' brother. He is forty-five, a scrawny and weak man, "with a nasty mouth." He is passionate about anal sex even when having sex with women and girls, refusing to have vaginal intercourse with them.
• The Président de Curval – aged sixty, a tall and lanky man, "frightfully dirty about his body and attaching voluptuousness thereto." He is a judge and used to enjoy handing out death sentences to defendants he knew to be innocent.
• Durcet – aged 53, 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 principal characters into similar acts of depravity.
• Eight studs/cockmongers (or 'fuckers') who are chosen solely on the basis of how big their penises are.

The victims are:

• The daughters of the four principal characters, whom they have been sexually abusing for years. All die with the exception of the Duc's daughter Julie, who is spared for becoming something of a libertine herself.
• 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.
• Four of the eight aforementioned studs.

There are also several cooks and female servants, those in the latter category later being dragged into the proceedings.