「침묵의 미래」에 나타난 권력의 양상에 관한 연구 - 담론과 공간을 중심으로 -

Abstract

This paper discusses the aspect of power in Kim Ae-ran’s The Future of Silence, focusing particularly on the discourse of minority language speakers in the novel and a specially designed space called the Minority Language Museum. Using Foucault’s framework of exclusion systems imposed on discourse from the outside, the paper categorizes the various aspects of minority language speakers’ discourse and examines them through the lens of Agamben’s theory of biopolitics. Additionally, it applies Foucault’s spatial strategies of power, as seen in Discipline and Punish, to explore the relationship between the Minority Language Museum and power. The minority language speakers in The Future of Silence are deprived of their right to speak, marginalized and excluded from the dominant discourse, and demonstrate the resistant power of discourse when it conflicts with the will to truth. Their miserable fate, which can be interpreted allegorically, reflects the author’s deep insight into the biopolitical structures that restrict human freedom and rights, the discrimination and inequality experienced by minorities and their cultures in a multicultural society, and the crisis of multiculturalism and cultural homogenization brought about by the intensification of globalization. Discipline turns minority language speakers, who have different languages and lifestyles, into practical people who conform to the central authority in a short period. Whether in the Minority Language Museum, where the technology of division is at work in exhibition rooms, in centrally built dormitories, or in temporary freedom-permitting zones, all spaces demonstrate that they fall within the realm of discipline for minority language speakers. These spatial strategies of power effectively imprison minority language speakers, turning them into their own monitors and forcing them to obey even when they rebel. Adopting Foucault’s concept of power and Agamben’s concept of biopolitics to interpret and illuminate The Future of Silence is an important attempt that reveals the complex and precise workings of power. This analysis sheds new light on the author’s perspective on language, space, and power, and encourages reflection on political power in contemporary society, the minorities in multicultural societies, and the issue of cultural homogenization in the age of globalization.