포스트휴먼적 주체성과 토니 모리슨 소설에서의 생성: 『파라다이스』와 『재즈』를 중심으로

Abstract

Toni Morrison asks the question of how new life can be created in her characters’ wretched lives to determine how to overcome the dualism that cuts race, culture, community, and society into two halves. Exploring the communities and characters in Morrison’s novels from the perspective of posthuman social ecology allows the act of creating new life in a failed community to be examined, to identify whether creating new life is possible. As Morrison claims, creating a new life in a wretched community is only possible through the continuous interactions between the characters and their stories and the relationships between human beings and non-human beings. The creation of the posthuman subject through these interactions demonstrates how each of Morrison’s characters can recover from self-imposed capitalist values or dominant societal norms within their communities. Consequently, the theme of creation in Morrison’s novels addresses the problems pervasive in society, in that it calls for specific issues to be considered, such as norms and values, community bonding, and the socially-affiliated forms and matters of political governance. By adopting the concepts of posthuman social ecology and gravitational concept of new materialism, this paper examines how new forms of life and her characters’ ethical bonds can emerge within Morrison’s communities.