“카탈로그 빠진 밀랍인형”: 『오래된 진귀품 가게』 속 물화된 인간의 개별성
“Waxwork, Without a Catalogue:” Individuality of the Thinged Humans in The Old Curiosity Shop
0
조회
0
다운로드
0
인용
0
참고문헌
키워드
초록
Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) delves into the culture of curio exhibitions in the 19th century, satisfying readers’ visual curiosity by showcasing “human curiosities” within the novel. Simultaneously, the narrative portrays certain key characters meeting their death, illustrating the ultimate state of thingness in human bodies. Dickens, who had an interest in the popular entertainment industry of 19th-century British society, encapsulates the contemporary culture where object-like humans and human-like objects were both presented as spectacles, including freak shows and wax figure exhibitions. Characters such as Nell Trent and Quilp exhibit characteristics resembling wax figures or automata, attracting the gaze of both other characters and the readers. Scenes featuring various characters evoke associations with circuses or freak shows, reflecting a culture where the human body is consumed as a spectacle. More importantly, in the essay “Some Recollection of Mortality,” Dickens reminisces about his frequent visits to the Paris Morgue, depicting the bewilderment induced among spectators seeking entertainment as they gazed upon the corpses that resembled wax figures. The imagery of these corpses helps us to better understand the portrayal of the dead bodies of Nell and Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop. Resisting the gaze of the spectators that commodifies them, the corpses of these two individuals suggest, as ‘imperfect replicas,’ the irreplicability, uniqueness, and individuality of their characters. The portrayal of Nell and Quilp’s bodies in death, attempting to ‘resemble’ their living counterparts just like wax effigies, paradoxically implies the presence of individuality and uniqueness of each character, now absent due to death.
Abstract
Charles Dickens’s The Old Curiosity Shop (1841) delves into the culture of curio exhibitions in the 19th century, satisfying readers’ visual curiosity by showcasing “human curiosities” within the novel. Simultaneously, the narrative portrays certain key characters meeting their death, illustrating the ultimate state of thingness in human bodies. Dickens, who had an interest in the popular entertainment industry of 19th-century British society, encapsulates the contemporary culture where object-like humans and human-like objects were both presented as spectacles, including freak shows and wax figure exhibitions. Characters such as Nell Trent and Quilp exhibit characteristics resembling wax figures or automata, attracting the gaze of both other characters and the readers. Scenes featuring various characters evoke associations with circuses or freak shows, reflecting a culture where the human body is consumed as a spectacle. More importantly, in the essay “Some Recollection of Mortality,” Dickens reminisces about his frequent visits to the Paris Morgue, depicting the bewilderment induced among spectators seeking entertainment as they gazed upon the corpses that resembled wax figures. The imagery of these corpses helps us to better understand the portrayal of the dead bodies of Nell and Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop. Resisting the gaze of the spectators that commodifies them, the corpses of these two individuals suggest, as ‘imperfect replicas,’ the irreplicability, uniqueness, and individuality of their characters. The portrayal of Nell and Quilp’s bodies in death, attempting to ‘resemble’ their living counterparts just like wax effigies, paradoxically implies the presence of individuality and uniqueness of each character, now absent due to death.
참고문헌 (24)
- Altick, Richard, "The Shows of London" (1978), Harvard UP
- Armstrong, Isobel, "Victorian Glassworlds: Glass Culture and the Imagination 1830-1880" (2008), Oxford UP
- Benedict, Barbara, "Curiosity : A Cultural History of Early Modern Inquiry" (2001), U of Chicago P
- Bloom, Michelle, "Waxworks : A Cultural Obsession" (2003), U of Minnesota P
- Brofen, Elisabeth, "Over Her Dead Body: Death, Femininity and the Aesthetic" (1992), Manchester UP
- Bruno, Guliana, "Atlas of Emotion: Journeys in Art, Architecture and Film" (2002), Verso
- Bryson, Norman, "Vision and Painting: The Logic of the Gaze" (1983), Yale UP
- Carey, John, "The Violent Effigy: A Study of Dickens’ Imagination" (1973), Faber and Faber
- Dickens, Charles, "Charles Dickens: Selected Journalism 1850-1870", pp.170~176 (1997), Penguin
- Dickens, Charles, "The Old Curiosity Shop" (2000), Penguin Classics
- DuComb, Christian, "The Anatomy of Body Worlds: Critical Essays on the Plastinated Cadavers of Gunther von Hagens", pp.176~188 (2009), McFarland & Co.
- Hager, Kelly, "Jasper Packlemerton, Victorian Freak", Victorian Literature and Culture, 34(1), pp.209~232 (2006)
- Lamb, John, "The Wax Girl: Molding Little Nell in ‘The Old Curiosity Shop'", Dickens Studies Annual, 44, pp.121~142 (2013)[DOI]
- Liu, Han Ying, "From Cabinets of Curiosities to Exhibitions: Victorian Curiosity, Curiousness, and Curious Things in Charlotte Brontë", PhD, pp.2012
- Morgentaler, Goldie, "A Tale of Two Dwarfs : Sex, Size and the Erotics of Transcendence", Dickens Quarterly, 32(3), pp.199~210 (2015)
- Pilbeam, Pamela, "Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks" (2003), Bloomsbury Publishing
- Schlicke, Paul, "Dickens and Popular Entertainment" (1988), Routledge
- Speaight, George, "The History of the English Puppet Theatre" (1955), John de Graff
- Stewart, Garrett, "Dickens and the Trials of Imagination" (1975), Harvard UP
- Stewart, Susan, "On Longing : Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection" (1984), Johns Hopkins UP
- Stolte, Tyson, "‘And Graves Give Up Their Dead’: The Old Curiosity Shop, Victorian Psychology, and the Nature of the Future Life", Victorian Literature and Culture, 42, pp.187~207 (2014)[DOI]
- Tredennick, Bianca, "Some Collections of Mortality: Dickens, the Paris Morgue, and the Material Corpse", Victorian Review, 36(1), pp.72~88 (2010)
- Van Ghent, Dorothy, "The Dickens World: A View from Todgers’s", The Sewanee Review, 58(3), pp.419~438, The Johns Hopkins UP
- Zemka, Sue, "From the Punchmen to Pugins Gothics : The Broad Road to a Sentimental Death in The Old Curiosity Shop", Nineteenth-Century Literature, 48(3), pp.291~309 (1993)