“우리의 검둥이”의 글쓰기: 흑백인간의 결혼, 가정폭력, 그리고 모성성: 『우리의 검둥이』를 중심으로
Our Nig’s Writing: Miscegenation, Family Violence and Motherhood
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This paper examines the social alienations inherent to racial oppression such as miscegenation and family violence by using maternal discourse in Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig. Our Nig begins with the life of Mag Smith, who is a white woman. Mag is regarded as a fallen woman because of a transgression of feminine virtue, sexual purity. Mag soon marries a free black man, Jim and it makes her sever her ties to white society by violating the social prohibitions against interracial sexual unions. Wilson juxtaposes Mag’s unforgivable social offenses to her extreme hardship and criticizes the dominant ideology of white society. Frado, the child of a mixed-race marriage is abandoned by Mag, her biological mother. Frado is left at the Bellmonts, a white household in North, where she is taken in as “our nig,” an indentured servant. Frado is overworked and repeatedly beaten like a female slave by Mrs. Bellmont, her surrogate mother. The domestic violence against her daughter is so brutal and wicked that Frado cannot live a comfortable life. Depicting Frado’s circumstances which are similar to those of a slave, Wilson portrays her white mothers as cruel, lustful, and unmotherly and attacks traditional images of white women as nurturing, kind, and chaste. And Wilson reconstructs a recovery of motherhood and criticizes the typical racism in the post-slavery society.
Abstract
This paper examines the social alienations inherent to racial oppression such as miscegenation and family violence by using maternal discourse in Harriet Wilson’s Our Nig. Our Nig begins with the life of Mag Smith, who is a white woman. Mag is regarded as a fallen woman because of a transgression of feminine virtue, sexual purity. Mag soon marries a free black man, Jim and it makes her sever her ties to white society by violating the social prohibitions against interracial sexual unions. Wilson juxtaposes Mag’s unforgivable social offenses to her extreme hardship and criticizes the dominant ideology of white society. Frado, the child of a mixed-race marriage is abandoned by Mag, her biological mother. Frado is left at the Bellmonts, a white household in North, where she is taken in as “our nig,” an indentured servant. Frado is overworked and repeatedly beaten like a female slave by Mrs. Bellmont, her surrogate mother. The domestic violence against her daughter is so brutal and wicked that Frado cannot live a comfortable life. Depicting Frado’s circumstances which are similar to those of a slave, Wilson portrays her white mothers as cruel, lustful, and unmotherly and attacks traditional images of white women as nurturing, kind, and chaste. And Wilson reconstructs a recovery of motherhood and criticizes the typical racism in the post-slavery society.
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