토리 모리슨의 『재즈』에 나타난 노년의 의미

정순국(Jung, Sun-kug) 건국대학교 GLOCAL(글로컬)캠퍼스 스토리앤이미지텔링연구소 2019 스토리&이미지텔링 Vol.18 No.-

필자는 토니 모리슨의 『재즈』에서 인식되고 있지만 분명하게 표현되지 않는 노화의 의미를 탐구하려고 한다. 모리슨에 의해 지속해서 형상화되는 육체적인 허약함이 사실은 등장인물 특히 조의 상실감과 관련되어 있다면, 노화의 의미를 단순히 육체적인 힘의 쇠퇴 또는 기능 저하와 연결할 수 없기 때문이다. 조의 도카스와의 육체적인 관계는 노년기에 생긴다고 여겨지는 성적인 욕망의 감소를 암시하는 편견과 무기력한 흑인을 규정하는 언어 행위에 도전한다. 이런 맥락에서 조의 도카스에 대한 욕망은 충족되지 않는 만족을 성취 가능한 동시에 성취 불가능한 형태로 표상한다. 우리는 조가 실제로 회복하고 소유하고 싶은 것이 무엇인지를 이해하지 못할 수도 있다. 조가 지닌 욕망의 형태를 추정하지 못하기 때문이 아니라, 어머니로부터의 분리가 일으킨 상실감을 이해해야 하기 때문이다. 그는 도카스가 죽고 나서야 어머니에 대한 사랑의 의미를 온전히 자각하는 것처럼 보인다. 상실한 사랑의 대상에 대한 집착은 도카스의 살인으로 절정에 이르고 자신의 정체를 또 다른 상실과 은밀히 연결한다. 『재즈』에 수많은 ‘같지만 다른 상실’이 서술, 대화 그리고 의식을 통해서 반복되는 이유이기도 하다. 작품의 초반부터 언급되고 있는 도카스의 살인으로 촉발된 등장인물과 내포작가의 서술 그리고 그들의 의식을 통해서 폭로되는 개인과 사회 문제는 강력한 메시지를 구체적이지만 서서히 형상화한다. I intend to delve into the signification of aging that is recognized but not expressed clearly in Toni Morrison’s Jazz. If the physical weakening consistently configured by Morrison has in fact something to do with the characters’ sense of loss, especially Joe’s, aging would not stick to physical degradation or incompetence. Joe’s physical relationship with Dorcas thus has to challenge any mention and implication concerning the decline of his sexual desire, which is supposed to be caused by aging. It can be said from this context that Joe’s desire for Dorcas takes on the form that makes his insatiable gratification achievable and at the same time unachievable. Maybe, we could not understand what Joe actually wants to restore and possess. It is not because we can not assume what his desire is likely to be, but because we have to understand his sense of deprivation caused by the separation from his mother. He could not have realized his love for his mother until Dorcas was killed. The obsession with the object of lost love culminates in the murder of Dorcas and secretly links itself to other losses. That"s why so many ‘same but different losses" in Jazz are repeated through the narratives, conversations and consciousnesses of the characters. The narratives and consciousnesses of both the characters and the implied author about the murder of Dorcas, which has been mentioned from the beginning of the work, embody the strong messages, albeit slowly, concerning personal and social issues.

린다 호건의 『야비한 정신』에 재현된 민족 정체성과 그에 따른 역사적 인식의 한계

정순국 ( Sun Kug Jung ) 한국영미문화학회 2015 영미문화 Vol.15 No.2

Linda Hogan has been criticized for having woven Mean Spirit through the distorted and fictionalized stories of the Osage tribe. However, Hogan should have been criticized, not because she transformed a few historical facts into fictional ones, but because she loosely represented the historical experiences that the Osages endured. In this paper, I will explore the reason Hogan fails to portray the true picture of them for; it is thus impossible to argue that Hogan embodies the complex situations of the time, which the Native Americans faced, throughly enough to properly be the stories of the Native Americans. It is the case, insofar as she concentrates all the attention on depicting two diametrically opposing world views, intentionally placing the novel on the subversive movement of the white world to attach much importance to the traditional way of the Osage life. As such, much obsessed with decentering the hierarchical structure of the Western world, Hogan does nothing but reformulate a move away from the white dominating world with an overemphasized concern about the Native traditions or perhaps ‘indigenousness,’ inadvertently asserting the specific, regional, and fictional place ‘the Hill’ as the center of the Osage tribe. In the process, she cannot extend her intense concern about the hideous feeling ‘fear’ that haunted the Osage people; she cannot mobilize the emotions of the characters sufficiently, which lead to the hidden meanings of racialism. It shows that Hogan is unable to interrogate the inter-dependant relations between the Osage and the white society, and more importantly between the past cultural construct and the ongoing process of creating culture in the present. Hogan’s novel needs to become the stories of Americans including hyphenated ones by questioning the pastness of the historical narrative and bringing their silenced voices to the present. Observed in this view, the scale of past and future possibilities for the creation of interrelated stories cannot be brought out on the basis of a single modality of discourses. Rather, it is the interactions of the stories that enable the readers to see the constant discursive acts as what are themselves dependent on others. However, Mean Spirit is still in a trap of binary opposition, which manifests itself through its failure to make the personal story and history of the Osages the part of their ordinary life, rather romanticized and mystified in the ‘Hill.’

괴물의 언어: 다문화시대의 프랑켄슈타인과 드라큘라

정순국 ( Sun Kug Jung ) 한국영미문화학회 2014 영미문화 Vol.14 No.2

Monsters cannot speak. They have been objectified and represented through a particular concept ‘monstrosity’ that renders the presence of monsters effectively simplified and nullified. In contemporary monster narratives, however, the site of monsters reveals that they could be the complex construction of society, culture, language and ideology. As going into the structure that concept is based on, therefore, meanings of monsters would be seen to be highly unstable. When symbolic language strives to match monsters with a unified concept, their meanings become only further deferred rather than valorized. This shows the language of monsters should disclose the self-contradiction inherent in ‘monstrosity,’ which has made others―namely beings we define as ‘different’ from ourselves in culture or physical appearance―embodied as abject and horrifying monsters. Unable to be understood, accepted, or called humans. I analyse Frankenstein and Dracula that firmly converge monstrous bodies into a symbolic meaning, demonstrating how this fusion causes problems in the multicultural society. I especially emphasize the undeniable affirmation of expurgated others we need to have empathetic relations with, because their difference, unfamiliarity, and slight divergences are likely to be defined as abnormalities. In the multicultural society, thus, we must learn to embrace diversity, while also having to recognize there are many others that have been thought of as monsters; ironically enabling us to think about an undeniable imperative of being responsive to other people. In this respect, the monstrous inhuman goes to the heart of the ethical undercurrent of multiculturalism, its resolute attempt to recognize and respect someone else`s difference from me. A focus on empathetic relations with others, thus, can strengthen the process of creating social mechanisms that do justice to the competing claims of different cultural groups and individuals.

실코의 다양한 이야기들을 통해서 재현되는 현대 미국 원주민의 정체성

정순국 ( Sun Kug Jung ) 한국영어영문학회 2010 영어 영문학 Vol.56 No.5

In this paper, I will explore disparate voices embedded in the interactions of stories in which personal, cultural, historical, and mythical consciousness brings up diverse ideas about the experiences of Native Americans. The accommodation of differences and changes is clearly manifested through the healing ceremony of Tayo, which poses some practical questions: what could be the authentic tradition of Native Americans?; which direction should it be led to? As these questions suggest, Tayo needs to think over and work through the way that Native oral stories will enrich the signification of being Indian within multicultural U. S. society. In other words, Tayo should transfer the oppositional relationship between Anglo and Native American world into an interactive one to bring forth new meanings concerning their interactions. As a hybrid, Tayo begins to recognize that his fragmented consciousness could represent the pervasive but surmountable anxiety about the cultural clash between Native and White Americans. Going through the multiple layers of his stories, Tayo learns that Native Americans need to hold a balanced viewpoint firmly: this demonstrates that storytelling brings restoration and renewal to him. As a result of Betonie`s healing ceremony and his intimate relationship with Ts`eh, Tayo comes to have a holistic comprehension about how all the living things are interconnected to one another. After acquiring this recognition, Tayo succeeds in his quest to get back Josiah`s cattle and recovers his identity as a Laguna Pueblo Indian, still letting diverse voices, cultures, and stories flow into the process of storytelling. As the last scene in which the conversations among Tayo, Auntie, and Grandmother took place illustrates, Tayo has newly secured a position that will require him to create a new, alternative story, not just repeating previous stories.

다문화 사회에서의 글로리아 안잘두아의 『경계지대들/경계선에서: 새로운 메스티자』의 혼성성의 시학

정순국 ( Sun Kug Jung ) 한국영미문화학회 2010 영미문화 Vol.10 No.2

This paper explores hybridity and hybridized relations that see mixings and crossings as the first moment of multicultural society. References to hybridity often assume that the definition and orientation of the term are located within biology; that is, hybridity constitutes a mixing of two formally discrete objects. In this regard, there seems to be a dialectical preoccupation with purity that goes hand in hand with discussions of hybridity. This dialectical reference to hybridity privileges whole, complete entities as the original instance before mixing, and in this way purity becomes reified. My analysis of hybridity foregrounds mixings that occur at the level of the social, not exclusively at the level of the biological. Hybridity contexts the myth of monoculturalism in the United States and foregrounds multiculturalism as the initial context around which difference has begun to be conceived. In destabilizing the myth of racial origins, this paper attempts to establish a retroactive construction of purity, which is historically, ideologically, and ethnically examined in Gloria Anzaldua`s Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Through this work composed of disparate narratives discourses, Anzaldua employs physical differences to ward off the colonial desire that has defined others as objects which are to be controlled. In this regard, this paper pursues the way that physical differences could be repositioned in terms of `hybridity` that has been related to the cultural, historical, economical significations of borderlands. The space of borderlands is also a place marked psychologically; it will turn differences mobilized in the borderland into an acute consciousness that makes us recognize `otherness` within ourselves. In sum, this paper attempts to elaborate the productive and creative interactions among disparate languages, classes, genders, and ideas, which will draw attention to their own interlocking nature.

침묵을 강요당했던 빌러비드들의 다문화 사회에서의 의미: 토니 모리슨의 『빌러비드』를 중심으로

정순국 ( Sun Kug Jung ) 한국아메리카학회 2009 미국학논집 Vol.41 No.3

In Beloved, Toni Morrison strives to have the silenced voices of ex-slaves heard. In this novel, personal stories and experiences of characters interfere in the official history of slavery. Sethe articulates the experiences of slavery through the omission from U.S. history of those silenced voices of slavery. Throughout Beloved, diverse voices concerning sexually and economically abused slaves are re-presented and re-created through the reincarnated Beloved, whose meanings become ambivalent. As the novel progresses, Morrison`s critical tone about the violent structure of slavery becomes poignant as characters` discursive interactions come to be complicated, which depends the signification of their slave experiences. Morrison`s critique demonstrates that the dominant meaning systems, which are readily available to students and teachers, are ideologically stitched into the fabric of Western imperialism and patriarchy. Multiculturalists thus cast a critical gaze against the structure of monoculturalism and interpose the semantic movements of difference into the notion of ethnical, cultural, regional, and political identity, activating them in sociopolitical contexts. I argue that multiculturalism helps us build up the agency of an ethical responsibility of silenced voices, because it analyzes the way in which racial, sexual, cultural, and political differences have been exploited in colonialism but acknowledged in multicultural society.

『빌러비드』와 『종군 위안부』에 재현된 ‘죽은 자의 목소리’

정순국(Sun-Kug Jung) 한국아메리카학회 2018 미국학논집 Vol.50 No.1

In this paper, I intend to make clear the violences that were inflicted on the bodies of women and explore their contemporary aspects and significations in Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Nora Okja Keller’s Comfort Women. The sexual exploitation of women’s bodies, intimately related with the sexual desire of men, has brought about discourses of subalterns in territories of economy, society, and politics. It seems to be inevitable, though not intentionally, that official and dominant narratives wipe out mournful stories of slaves from history. Secondly, this paper deals with the reason why voices of oppressed people are getting political in nature, while comparing the situations in which African-Americans and comfort women were placed. Lastly, this paper inquires into the way that the re-memory could transform what have been inscribed on the wounded bodies of women into narrative forms. In doing so, it demonstrates that their personal stories are filled with emotions such as shame and humiliation and sadness, which should be transmitted to have interactive relations with others and resist against everything that violates and exploits those relations.

홀로코스트서사의 한계와 스미스의 『거울 속에 반영된 분노』 에 제시된 치유 서사의 가능성

정순국 ( Sun Kug Jung ) 경희대학교 글로벌인문학술원 2016 비교문화연구 Vol.43 No.-

In this paper, I intend to focus on the 1991 racial tension and violence portrayed in Anna Devear Smith’s book Fires in the Mirror, which was published in book form in 1993. I make use of a series of interviews with many of those involved in the conflicts, which were based on the Jewish Holocaust and the history of African American enslavement. In Crown Heights, the black community and the Jewish community have each suffered terrible losses, but individuals and communities become rhetorically attached to foundational historical traumas that lie at the center of each group’s cultural identity rather than try to understand each other’s pain. Smith lets this rhetoric dominate Fires in the Mirror by putting contradictory monologues side by side in order to show how discourses on ‘slavery’and ‘the Holocaust’ still have control over specific ethnic communities.My intention is not to delve into the conflict between the Jewish and black communities exclusively. Rather, I attempt to form an understanding of the problems of the critical/theoretical tenets proposed by ‘the rhetoric of holocaust,’ including the Jewish Holocaust and the black experience of enslavement. Such an understanding will help us see the failure in the theories, illuminating the ways that such rhetoric should have recognized its own violence and helped to forge a new relationship between racism and anti-Semitism. Fires in the Mirror mirrors back to us the ways that ‘the Holocaust’ betrays the possibility of error to indicate its own susceptibility to blindness. The cracks brought forth by conflicting narratives enable readers to observe wounds being healed and the possibility of new narrative looming up.

새로운 방식으로 “인디언니스” 재현하기 -비즈노의 인디언 정형화에 대한 끊임없는 도전

정순국 ( Sun Kug Jung ) 한국현대영미소설학회 2010 현대영미소설 Vol.17 No.2