토니 모리슨의 『솔로몬의 노래』에 나타나는 “사후 기억” 개념과 그 속에 내포된 실천적 의미

Abstract

This essay analyzes the actions through which the protagonist Milkman in Morrison’s novel Song of Solomon perceives previous generations’ traumatic experience and tries to incorporate it into his life, referring to Marianne Hirsch’s notion of “postmemory.” The ultimate aim of this work is to reveal that this “postmemory” work is linked with the broader scope of other people’s experiences of pain and to draw out the practical meaning implicit in the notion of postmemory. Hirsch’s notion of postmemory is a kind of intergenerational memory work through which a parental generation’s traumatic memories are transferred to the next generation. Postmemory is noted for its inseparable bond to the past, yet this bond is fragmentary and indirect. Postmemory represents the deferred effects of trauma and the transmission of trauma to individuals and communities that are at least one generation away from the experienced trauma. Mediation must be posited in postmemory with the character of the deferred effects of trauma. This essay describes the possibility that people who do not experience trauma directly can still experience it through a mechanism operated by belatedness, replacement, vicariousness, and mediation. In Hirsch’s notion of postmemory, these are constitutive elements that enable the intergenerational transmission of trauma. This essay reveals the postmemory work, finding the more expansive meaning implicit in Hirsch’s postmemory and applying it to the process of transformation in Milkman’s actions and identity. In this regard, the discussion highlights Milkman’s changed appearance, which is shown in the process of his efforts to perceive and reappropriate his parents’ trauma as well as the pain of his remote ancestors and others.