“나를 사랑하나요?”: 정동이론으로 바라본 D. H. 로렌스의 「말장수 딸」

Abstract

This essay attempts to read D. H. Lawrence’s “The Horse Dealer’s Daughter,” through the affect theory by comparing it with James Joyce’s “The Boarding House.” The main motivation of this study is to clarify those gigantic themes of critical approaches to Lawrence’s novels, such as the unknown, the mystery, and the unconscious self into the technical terms of the affect theory. To elucidate the affective quality in Lawrence’s novels as the two short stories are compared, it contrasts affect with emotion referring to Brian Massumi’s theory, which distinguishes affect from emotion arguing they follow different logics and belong to different orders. According to Parables for the Virtual, “An emotion is a subjective content, the sociolinguistic fixing of the quality of an experience which is from that point onward defined as personal.” Consequently, an emotion can be accepted by others as well as delivered to others. However, affect is “unqualified,” so it is “not own able or recognizable and is thus resistant to critique.” It means affect cannot be verbalized and cognized though it can move the state of a body. It just flows between people and exists as possibilities of life. This paper focuses on the reasons Ferguson and Doran promise to marry in order to demonstrate the affective quality. The introductory part of Lawrence’s short story shows that Mabel and Ferguson don’t seem to notice each other properly. Then abruptly Mable asks Ferguson if he loves her as she comes to her mind after she is rescued from the pond by Ferguson. It embarrasses readers as much as Ferguson because until that moment it is never read that she has any feeling with him. This writing argues what makes her say this question is affective love. It is proved by comparing the emotion by which Doran makes a promise to marry Polly.