『로미오와 줄리엣』에 나타난 어긋난 세계

Abstract

This essay aims to explore the ways in which contretemps dominate(s) the thematical climate of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in reference to Derrida's key idea of diffrance, an archi-concept designating a field of signification on the basis of what he called, "the becoming-time of space" and "the becoming-space of time." For this purpose, the discussion is divided into three parts. The first part argues that three examples of misdelivered or contaminated letters in the play, namely Friar's letter to Romeo, Tybalt's written challenge against Romeo, and Capulet's invitation letter, may be read in Derridean context because they all illuminate how the signifier never corresponds to the (transcendental) signified in its creation of the space of contretemps. In so doing it is suggested that the space of contretemps structurally organizes the tragic love between Romeo and Juliet. In addition to the written sign, the second part of this essay examines how and why speech is always already subject to contretemps as well. By looking at how Juliet's famous soliloquy in the balcony scene inaugurates her forthcoming tragic death with Romeo, this part of the essay demonstrates that speech as well as writing fails to be under control either by the speaker or by the writer. Juliet, a representative figure of logocentrism, sounds as if her pure interiority is the very origin of truth from which Romeo's true identity, as opposed to his false or arbitrary name, comes. However, everything runs awry against her intended reason, resulting in her death with Romeo by chance. Then, how is this world of contretemps, or différance where everything is given over to chance possible? This is the question that the final part of this essay addresses. And it is proposed that the answer may be found in the appearance and intervention of the third in the relation between one and the other, which permeates every corner of the play. That is, from Mercutio to Friar Lawrence, almost every character in the play takes a role of the third that reconfigures the condition of beings, thereby elevating the possibilities of (mis)chances. Put another way, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet is a play about this third genus that both the self and the other must take as their only form of existence.