투기적 자본주의 시대의 디킨즈 여성 이데올로기 -『우리 서로의 친구』에 대하여

Abstract

Critical discussions of Our Mutual Friend(OMF) often dissociate the public sphere of speculative capitalism and the private sphere of domestic virtue, paying little attention to many historical strands which have worked into the construction of Victorian domestic ideology. I have attempted to read OMF in the historical context of England's new economic climate of the late 1850's and early 1860's which followed the Joint Stock Companies Act of 1856. With its general limited liability, the new financial arrangements generated fears about moral ambiguities as well as an unprecedented speculative boom. This paper explores the characteristics of the speculative world of capitalism presented in OMF and Dickens's 'woman ideology' in its relation to the new economic climate. The dynamics of speculation generated by the principle of 'money makes money' is presented through the 'Society' of the Veneerings. The world, where the 'exchange value' prevails over 'intrinsic value,' floats without an anchor. In this world of OMF, an ideal woman, an incarnation of morality and value, is missing. Bella Wilfer has to learn to overcome her lust for money in order to be a woman with domestic virtue. And Lizzie Hexam comes back from her flight only after Eugene Wrayburn realizes the superiority of morality over his sexual lust near the end of the story. My research demonstrates that Dickens's attempt to bring back his ideal woman, the bearer of 'intrinsic value,' to a world deprived of any reliable criterion to tell right and wrong reveals inherent contradictions and limitations of his 'woman ideology,' and these contradictions and limitations imply Dickens has attempted to overturn traditional Victorian woman ideology. Changes in Dickens's attitude toward traditional Victorian woman ideology show that he no longer supports and believes in the Victorian middle-class systems of value in political, social, moral problems.