『요나의 박 넝쿨』에 나타난 가부장적 위계질서 허물기
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This paper analyzes Jonah’s Gourd Vine, one of Zora Neale Hurston’s earlier novels, focusing not only on the process of deconstructing male authority, but also on systematic problems in the Western patriarchal society. After years of unfair critical evaluation, and as black women writers have attracted renewed attention, the works of Hurston have been reevaluated by recent author and critics. Also contributing to this reevaluation, modern methods of literary assessment have changed and varied. Published in 1934, Jonah’s Gourd Vine has been ignored and misunderstood by contemporary and recent critics as well. Because the title of this novel came from the Old Testament, most critics have tried to find out ‘who plays the role of the worm undermining the Jonah’s gourd vine.’ However, if we think of Jonah’s Gourd Vine as a novel dealing with domestic and social problems, we are able to discover Hurston’s real design and purpose, and the messages she intended to impart to the readers when she wrote this novel. In Jonah’s Gourd Vine, Hurston creates a sophisticated feminist critique of marriage that operates on a number of levels. First and foremost, Hurston subtly and subversively shreds dichotomous constructions of gender roles and spheres, that is, male/public and female/private. Second, Hurston challenges the contemporary negative stereotypes of black women as sexually wayward. She clearly demonstrates the diversity of black womanhood and the various way that black women respond to oppression. Third, and most subtly, Hurston reconfigures oppressor/oppressed relationships by demonstrating the ways in which women, to some degree, perpetuate their own oppression, sometimes even choosing one sphere of oppression over another. In addition, Huston softly but strongly criticizes the patriarchal system in America by creating three female characters who marry John, despite Huston's portraying John as seemingly powerful male character. Through the figure of John, who has powerful male sexuality but acts like a small boy, Hurston criticizes the values of patriarchal culture. And through Lucy and Sally, John’s first and second wife respectively, Hurston slyly critiques traditional gender roles. These women play the mother role, so they always forgive and overlook John’s faults, even though they are John’s wives. They are so accustomed to the mother role that they are not able to recognize or criticize the harmful consequences of patriarchy. John's third wife Hattie might be overlooked because she has been thought to represent the negative stereotype of the loose woman, but her stubborn refusal of cultural definitions of appropriate or respectable womanhood is justifiable, and can be seen as a protest against the hard-and-fast patriarchal society.
Abstract
This paper analyzes Jonah’s Gourd Vine, one of Zora Neale Hurston’s earlier novels, focusing not only on the process of deconstructing male authority, but also on systematic problems in the Western patriarchal society. After years of unfair critical evaluation, and as black women writers have attracted renewed attention, the works of Hurston have been reevaluated by recent author and critics. Also contributing to this reevaluation, modern methods of literary assessment have changed and varied. Published in 1934, Jonah’s Gourd Vine has been ignored and misunderstood by contemporary and recent critics as well. Because the title of this novel came from the Old Testament, most critics have tried to find out ‘who plays the role of the worm undermining the Jonah’s gourd vine.’ However, if we think of Jonah’s Gourd Vine as a novel dealing with domestic and social problems, we are able to discover Hurston’s real design and purpose, and the messages she intended to impart to the readers when she wrote this novel. In Jonah’s Gourd Vine, Hurston creates a sophisticated feminist critique of marriage that operates on a number of levels. First and foremost, Hurston subtly and subversively shreds dichotomous constructions of gender roles and spheres, that is, male/public and female/private. Second, Hurston challenges the contemporary negative stereotypes of black women as sexually wayward. She clearly demonstrates the diversity of black womanhood and the various way that black women respond to oppression. Third, and most subtly, Hurston reconfigures oppressor/oppressed relationships by demonstrating the ways in which women, to some degree, perpetuate their own oppression, sometimes even choosing one sphere of oppression over another. In addition, Huston softly but strongly criticizes the patriarchal system in America by creating three female characters who marry John, despite Huston's portraying John as seemingly powerful male character. Through the figure of John, who has powerful male sexuality but acts like a small boy, Hurston criticizes the values of patriarchal culture. And through Lucy and Sally, John’s first and second wife respectively, Hurston slyly critiques traditional gender roles. These women play the mother role, so they always forgive and overlook John’s faults, even though they are John’s wives. They are so accustomed to the mother role that they are not able to recognize or criticize the harmful consequences of patriarchy. John's third wife Hattie might be overlooked because she has been thought to represent the negative stereotype of the loose woman, but her stubborn refusal of cultural definitions of appropriate or respectable womanhood is justifiable, and can be seen as a protest against the hard-and-fast patriarchal society.
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