소설과 제국주의

Abstract

SeungImperialism is one of the most frequent and productive themes for the traditional English novel. Therefore we can say that, as Said indicates, “without empire there is no European novel as we know it”.The novel is inaugurated in England by Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, a work whose protagonist is the founder of a new world which he rules and reclaims for England. This is much more apparent in middle-nineteenth-century, openly colonial fiction: in Jane Eyre, for example, imperialism is praised for the world and mankind. But, in late-nineteenth- century and after, we can find some writers both criticizing and reproducing the imperial ideology of his time. Heart of Darkness, A Passage to India, and Heart of the Matter are cases in point. Every literary work is influenced by social conditions. British power was durable and continually reinforced. In the related and adjacent cultural sphere, that power was elaborated and articulated in the novel, whose central continuous presence is not comparably to be found elsewhere. That's why we must read it from a different point of view and with a cautious eye. <Chonbuk National University>