쿠션과 우산 : 『작은 아씨들』에 나타난 젠더 역할

Abstract

One of the most popular domestic novels, Little Women, has shown the fundamental value of family and family love through attractive Tomboy Jo’s growth and her life. Surrounded by her beloved sisters and her mother dear Marmee, Jo knows the importance of family and home as a refuge in a troubled world. She wants to live as an independent person or as “the man of the family,” saying, “I can’t get over my disappointment in not being a boy.” Jo, who has a strong desire to be a writer and live by her own will, avoids Laurie’s love and runs away to the wider world, New Y ork, where s he may “ see and hear new t hing s, g et n ew ideas.” Leaving Laurie and home behind, Jo seems to fall into an unfamiliar isolated situation. Fortunately, she works as a governess in Mrs. Kirke’s safe domestic environment and has a chance to write her “sensational stories” in the newspaper. Two objects are used in the novel to represent Jo’s state of mind and the relationship between Laurie and Professor Bhaer. One is a pillow called the “sausage,” which signals that Jo’s temporal and spatial sphere is not to be interrupted, and “being used as a weapon of defence, a barricade,” especially against Laurie, it is a sign not to approach Jo. Jo uses this “sausage” to protect her immature, innocent, and unstable world from potential collapse. The other is the “umbrella,” which Professor Bhaer has and uses to shelter Jo before his proposal. Jo, who forg ets to b ring her own “little umbrella,” already under the influence of Professor Bhaer’s harsh but sincere advice about her “sensational stories,” rushes under “his” umbrella and accepts the proposal of marriage. The “sausage” can be interpreted as a tool for Jo to keep her own will and freedom. Even though young Jo’s desire to be a writer and an independent person is an immature and imperfect one, she tries to keep it with her full heart. However, “the umbrella” means, unlike the case of the “sausage,” that Jo gives up her independent life. By standing together with Professor Bhaer under his umbrella, permanently losing her “so crumpled and underscored” manuscripts, which she had once written for the paper, attractive Tomboy Jo returns to the nineteenth century’s traditional value for “women” as “Mother Bhaer.“