마크 트웨인의 후기 작품에 나타나는 주체의 개념과 낯섦/해체의 문제
The Concept of Subjectivity and the Problem of Strangeness/Deconstruction in Mark Twain's Later Works
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This article aims to investigate the concept of subjectivity in Mark Twain's later works and, thereby, illuminate how he deconstructs modern subjectivity based on reason and autonomy. For this purpose, I examine What is Man? and No 44, The Mysterious Stranger. In What is Man? while discussing the nature of human subject with the Young Man, the Old Man, Twain's mouthpiece, undermines the concept of rational subject, conceptualizing man as a machine completely determined by multitudinous outside influences and training. Further, the Old Man subverts human-centrism, that is, the human’s superiority over animals, abolishing the “intellectual frontier” between man and beast, which western metaphysics has taken for granted. Twain also conducts Deleuzian “becoming-animal” and deconstructs human-centrism in the works. More interestingly, while Freud is interrogating libido as man’s sole motivation, Twain examines self-approval as the “only impulse” that moves a person to do a thing, and thereby undermines the concept of modern rational subject. He also reinstates the instinct oppressed as the Other by reason, redefining it as “petrified thought.” Further, Twain presents the strangeness of subject to the reader and subverts the concepts of modern rational subject. The author ultimately, in Deleuzian terms, “de-territorializes” many western metaphysical concepts related to rational subject by examining the “law” of self-contentment and self-approval.
Abstract
This article aims to investigate the concept of subjectivity in Mark Twain's later works and, thereby, illuminate how he deconstructs modern subjectivity based on reason and autonomy. For this purpose, I examine What is Man? and No 44, The Mysterious Stranger. In What is Man? while discussing the nature of human subject with the Young Man, the Old Man, Twain's mouthpiece, undermines the concept of rational subject, conceptualizing man as a machine completely determined by multitudinous outside influences and training. Further, the Old Man subverts human-centrism, that is, the human’s superiority over animals, abolishing the “intellectual frontier” between man and beast, which western metaphysics has taken for granted. Twain also conducts Deleuzian “becoming-animal” and deconstructs human-centrism in the works. More interestingly, while Freud is interrogating libido as man’s sole motivation, Twain examines self-approval as the “only impulse” that moves a person to do a thing, and thereby undermines the concept of modern rational subject. He also reinstates the instinct oppressed as the Other by reason, redefining it as “petrified thought.” Further, Twain presents the strangeness of subject to the reader and subverts the concepts of modern rational subject. The author ultimately, in Deleuzian terms, “de-territorializes” many western metaphysical concepts related to rational subject by examining the “law” of self-contentment and self-approval.
참고문헌 (16)
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