『위대한 유산』, 동양철학으로 다시읽기* - 신사와 군자의 개념을 중심으로

Abstract

Great Expectations, Charles Dickens' thirteenth novel, is a record of a boy's coming of age, during which he aspires to become a gentleman. The novel helps the reader reconsider human nature through a diverse and detailed description of the life of Pip as a hero of the novel. This paper aims to observe the snobbism that the young hero experiences in the course of his education to become a gentleman. Pip happens to receive the "great expectation", from an unknown patron, who is later known as Magwitch, an expelled culprit. This paper also intends to compare the concept of true gentlemanship implied in the work with that of the great man or a gentleman in the Eastern philosophy of Confucianism. The gentlemanship pursued by Pip is an ideal of the lower class in his days, but it is one of the results of the mammonism of the Victorian England. This work describes in detail diverse people's aspiration for the gentlemanship, which was one of the greatest prides of the time, and then it bitterly criticizes and satirizes its negative aspects. Nevertheless, with his own expectation and hope for the possibility of social changes through the awareness and change of each individual person, Dickens presents his own ideal of a gentleman through the process of self-awareness happening in Pip. Pip grows up in body and in spirit after learning lessons from all kinds of experiences in the course of his life. The faith in the goodness of human nature culminates in Joe, who is entitled "a gentle Christian man," having never discarded his conscience and consideration for others in any situation, and in a sincere girl named Biddy, who is provided with a new happy life, having kept her love and kindness, and finally in the young selfish Pip, who is transformed into 'a gentleman in a real sense' after the great lessons in life. The concept of a gentleman in the west and that of a great man in the east have similar origin in their intention and meaning. For the two concepts, which both designate one's attitudes towards self, others and the society, and share the value of honor and responsibility, can be achieved in the course of diverse and sometimes hard lessons, experiences and self-discipline even in adverse situations. When the novel with such a plot and contents is re-read in the light of some major concepts of Eastern philosophy, whose intention is to bring up 'a great man(君子)' in a premise that 'all men were born good,' it can be understood that the ideals of a western writer and some eastern philosophers, although their worlds apart, are not so different in context.