레비나스의 향유에 대한 사유와 캐더의 『나의 안토니아』 연구

Abstract

Materialism is predominant in modern society. In modern society people tend to think that their cars, houses, and other belongings represent who they are. This makes them become obsessed with materials. Accordingly, people overestimate the importance of material to the extent that the relation between human and material is reversed. Nowadays, human is evaluated in terms of material, not vice versa. For example, when people build relationships, they first think of what they can get from the other party. This means that they evaluate the other party in terms of necessity, as they evaluate a product in terms of necessity. In relation to the materialistic ways of thinking, Emmanuel Levinas gives an important message. As Levinas sees it, the traditional Western philosophy has been preoccupied with the self, and the self understands what lies outside itself as transient and exterior. In the narcissistic ways of thinking the self gets enjoyment when it uses up the other in order to fulfill its own needs and desires. To the contrary, Levinas claims that the other cannot be reduced to a symmetrical relationship with the self. In this sense, he calls the other the Other. According to Levinas, when a person perceives the other as the Other, he seeks happiness in the enjoyment of the Other. Willa Cather’s My Ántonia shows a good example of what Levinas claims through the enjoyment. In this novel Ántonia, the protagonist, represents human as a being of the enjoyment. Ántonia is a daughter of a Czech family that immigrated from Bohemia to Nebraska. While living on the prairie, she experiences difficulties including poverty and the death of her father. Nonetheless, she is not frustrated, and seeks happiness in the enjoyment of life and in the enjoyment of Jim, the narrator. Meanwhile, Jim leaves the prairie and moves to Lincoln and to Boston to study. After all, he becomes a lawyer and marries a rich and influential woman who can provide what he needs in order to succeed as a lawyer. But the materialistic relationship with his wife makes Jim sick. In his depression, Jim misses his childhood that he spent with Ántonia. He wishes to go back to the old days when he felt happy in the enjoyment of nature and of Ántonia.