이사벨, 포섭되지 않는 호모 사케르: 허먼 멜빌의『피에르』를 중심으로

Abstract

This paper studies the contradictory relationship between a sovereign and a homo sacer among Pierre’s mother, Mary Glendinning, Pierre, and Isabel in Herman Melville’s Pierre or The Ambiguities based on concepts outlined in Giorgio Agamben’s Homo Sacer. Mary is representative of the sovereignty and seemingly has authority to decides who are citizen or a homo sacer, what is moral or immoral or what is legitimate or illegitimate. She controls both of them : it appears as though homo sacer still remains in the boundary on which that the sovereignty decides who are citizen or not, or what is moral or not. Isabel, who was born as an illegitimate child of Mr. Glendinning, represents the very homo sacer who is not afforded any right from society. Although she just possesses a bare body, she reveals the absurdity and fabrication of the sovereignty’s authority and manipulation in their construction of the boundary between good and evil, between legitimate and illegitimate, between a citizen and a homo sacer. She unconsciously helps Pierre, who realizes the relationship between a sovereignty and a homo sacer, to escape from the sovereign’s regulation. Pierre, who finds himself in a complicated relationship with Mary and Isabel decides to be a homo sacer, relinquishing Glendinning’s property and the right to become a member of society. Consequently he then plunges into the mysterious space, merging into Isabel and exiting as an ambiguous existence over which the sovereign cannot win.