사물 이론과 존재 윤리: 토니 모리슨의 『솔로몬의 노래』
Thing Theory and Ethics of Being: Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon
0
조회
0
다운로드
1
인용
0
참고문헌
키워드
초록
This article is to read Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon through the lens of thing theory that Bill Brown establishes for literary studies. Brown, who has developed the theory on the basis of Heidegger’s distinction between things and objects, proposes that literary study return to the manmade material object as a way of grounding a “gritter, materialist phenomenology of everyday life”(Sense 3). Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon is a text of things in a context that it is full of material objects represented not as “mere representation” but as “a gathering of multiple functions and realities into one time- bound object”(Heidegger 167, 174). Considering the previous tendency of criticism on Toni Morrison mainly to reduce her fiction to racial identity or feminist spheres, we need a new methodology by which to read Song of Solomon as a text of things. A close reading of Song of Solomon through thing theory illustrates thing theory’s potential as a proper tool to interpret the multiple layers of significance encompassed in things of the novel, and to clarify Morrison’s artistic vision. By examining the role of objects such as Macon Dead’s two cars, Pilate’s yellow green sack, and the woods of Blue Ridge Mountain, this article first demonstrates that the things open “the indeterminate ontology where things seem slightly human and humans seem slightly thing-like”(Brown Sense 13). Then it insists that Morrison’s artistic vision is primarily freedom of nonbeing, which is achieved through the transformative process of self-“deprivation, wounding, and dying”(Lee 69). This literary study, which posits material objects in the center of interpretive concern, is ethical because as Brown insists(“Thing Theory”12), accepting the otherness of things is the condition for accepting otherness as such.
Abstract
This article is to read Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon through the lens of thing theory that Bill Brown establishes for literary studies. Brown, who has developed the theory on the basis of Heidegger’s distinction between things and objects, proposes that literary study return to the manmade material object as a way of grounding a “gritter, materialist phenomenology of everyday life”(Sense 3). Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon is a text of things in a context that it is full of material objects represented not as “mere representation” but as “a gathering of multiple functions and realities into one time- bound object”(Heidegger 167, 174). Considering the previous tendency of criticism on Toni Morrison mainly to reduce her fiction to racial identity or feminist spheres, we need a new methodology by which to read Song of Solomon as a text of things. A close reading of Song of Solomon through thing theory illustrates thing theory’s potential as a proper tool to interpret the multiple layers of significance encompassed in things of the novel, and to clarify Morrison’s artistic vision. By examining the role of objects such as Macon Dead’s two cars, Pilate’s yellow green sack, and the woods of Blue Ridge Mountain, this article first demonstrates that the things open “the indeterminate ontology where things seem slightly human and humans seem slightly thing-like”(Brown Sense 13). Then it insists that Morrison’s artistic vision is primarily freedom of nonbeing, which is achieved through the transformative process of self-“deprivation, wounding, and dying”(Lee 69). This literary study, which posits material objects in the center of interpretive concern, is ethical because as Brown insists(“Thing Theory”12), accepting the otherness of things is the condition for accepting otherness as such.
참고문헌 (26)
- 강준수, "『솔로몬의 노래』에 나타난 아프리카 전통의 회복", 영어권문화연구, 10(1), pp.5~31 (2017), 영어권문화연구소
- 권혁미, "『솔로몬의 노래』에서의 밀크맨의 미국 남부 여행 동행기", 한국사진지리학회지, 21(2), pp.195~207 (2011), 한국사진지리학회
- 김미아, "비상으로부터 상실, 긍정과 조화로움으로의 변화에 이르는 흑인이데올로기: 『솔로몬의 노래』의 밀크맨의 변화를 중심으로", 영어영문학연구, 51(3), pp.61~79 (2009), 한국중앙영어영문학회
- 김애주, "정체성 정치학과 그 너머에 대한 모색: 토니모리슨국내연구동향", 안과밖:영미문학연구, 19, pp.168~188 (2005), 영미문학연구회
- 브루스 W. 스코튼, "자아초월 심리학과 정신의학" (2008), 학지사
- Awkward, Michael, "Unruly and let loose: Myth, Ideology, and Gender in Song of Solomon", Callaloo, 13(3), pp.482~496 (1990)
- Blake, Susan L., "Folklore and Community in Song of Solomon", MELUS, 7(3), pp.77~82 (1980)
- Brenner, Gerry, "Song of Solomon: Morrison’s Rejection of Rank’s Monomyth and Feminism", Studies in American Fiction, 15(1), pp.13~22 (1987)
- Brown, Bill, "A Sense of Things: The Object Matter of American Literature" (2003), U of Chicago
- Brown, Bill, "The Material Unconscious: American Amusement, Stephen Crane, and the Economics of Play" (1996), Harvard UP
- Brown, Bill, "Thing Theory", Critical Inquiry, 28(1), pp.1~22 (2001)
- Dubek, Laura, "Pass It On!: Legacy and the Freedom Struggle in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon", Southern Quarterly, 52(2), pp.90~109 (2015)
- Farshid, Sima, "The Crucial Role of Naming in Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon", J Afr Am St, 19, pp.329~338 (2015)
- Harpham, Geoffrey G., "Things and Theory", Raritan, 25(2), pp.134~145 (2005)
- Heidegger, Martin, "Poetry, Language, Thought" (1971), Harper & Row
- Lee, Dorothy H., "Song of Solomon: To Ride the Air", Black American Literature Forum, 16(2), pp.64~70 (1982)
- Lemaster, Tracy, "Feminist Thing Theory in Sister Carrie", Studies in American Naturalism, 4(1), pp.42~55 (2009)
- McDowell, Deborah E., "The Critical Tradition", pp.1139~1146 (1989), St. Martin Press
- McGuire, Olivia, "Incarnational Art: Thing Theory and Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood", Religion and the Arts, 17, pp.507~522 (2013)
- Mckay, Nellie, "Conversations with Toni Morrison", pp.138~155 (1994), UP of Mississippi
- Morrison, Toni, "Song of Solomon" (1977), Signet
- Rice, Herbert William, "Toni Morrison and the American Tradition" (1996), Peter Lang
- Rothberg, Michael, "Dead Letter Office: Conspiracy, Trauma, and Song of Solomon’s Posthumous Communication", AfricanAmerican Review, 37(4), pp.501~516 (2003)
- Samuels, Wilfred D., "Toni Morrison" (1990), Twayne Publishers
- Schopp, Joseph C., "Historiographic Metafiction in Modern American and Canadian Literature", pp.267~278 (1994), Schoningh
- Weever, Jacqueline de, "Toni Morrison’s Use of Fairy Tale, Folk Tale and Myth in Song of Solomon", Southern Folklore Quarterly, 44, pp.131~144 (1980)