우연, 디스토피아 그리고 영제국의 운명—세기말 소설의 불안감에 대한 진화론적 해석

Abstract

Novels published in the fin de siecle period show the gloomy and negative prediction on future, affected evolution. According to Darwinism, every living thing in nature is affected by changing atmosphere, and the results are the survival of the fittest, struggle of existence, and natural selection. The problem of Darwinian evolution is that evolution does not have any directional nature, which means degeneration is a way of evolution. Non-directional character of evolution was accepted by the people of Britain which had suffered from the decline of industry. Novels, the product of culture, having customers called reading public should respond the gloomy atmosphere of England and show two opposite directions: the first is the acceptance of the mood in the novel, and the second is the hopeful rejection of the defeated mood in the novel. Or, other novels show the mixed mood of the two opposite atmospheres. H. G. Wells shows the gloomy mood in Time Machine and World War, and Stevens shows the hopeful and positive mood in his novels including The Treasure Island. This article emphasizes the fact that the fin de siecle novels are products of the gloomy atmosphere of England suffering from declining of her power, whether the novels acknowledged the weakening of her power or not.