대중출판문화와 이디스 워턴:『그 지방의 관습』을 중심으로
Mass Publishing Culture and Edith Wharton in The Custom of the Country
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This article is to examine the impact of mass publishing culture on The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton. This novel demonstrates not only the rapid changes in publishing culture, including those influencing Wharton’s practice as a novelist, but also the relationship between the author, the publisher and the reader. The novel portrays the for-profit print's encroachment in the public sphere and the formative effect of mass culture through Undine Spragg, the novel’s energetic main figure and a polity comprised of media consumers, and also through Ralph Marvell, a member of the fading gentry class and tragic victim by new social trend. Unlike Undine who is eagerly willing to be guided in her social aspirations by mass print market’s products, the author felt deep ambivalence to the fast changing publishing market caused by commercialization of society. The novel presents a mixed view on its valuation of a tradition capable of countering such trend, despite concerns over the commercialization of society. Wharton maintains not only the flexible attitude toward the profit-oriented print sphere, assessing its powerful influence of the publishing market, but also the belief that fiction can address impending social issues to change the readers in a mass society. Through Undine’s materialistic and superficial behavior formulated by mass publishing culture, Wharton ultimately leads the readers to reflect themselves on what they have gained and lost. At the same time, she also guides them to evaluate the “real culture” Ralph Marvell tries to keep but fails. With this novel, Wharton makes immense efforts to prove that a simultaneous literary engagement of the social ills with the satisfaction of the profit motive is possible. Wharton also accomplishes here an unassailable literary thematic complexity; she endeavors to make her novel’s status part of a counter-narrative to mass publishing culture, the profit-driven culture that led to creation of Undine.
Abstract
This article is to examine the impact of mass publishing culture on The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton. This novel demonstrates not only the rapid changes in publishing culture, including those influencing Wharton’s practice as a novelist, but also the relationship between the author, the publisher and the reader. The novel portrays the for-profit print's encroachment in the public sphere and the formative effect of mass culture through Undine Spragg, the novel’s energetic main figure and a polity comprised of media consumers, and also through Ralph Marvell, a member of the fading gentry class and tragic victim by new social trend. Unlike Undine who is eagerly willing to be guided in her social aspirations by mass print market’s products, the author felt deep ambivalence to the fast changing publishing market caused by commercialization of society. The novel presents a mixed view on its valuation of a tradition capable of countering such trend, despite concerns over the commercialization of society. Wharton maintains not only the flexible attitude toward the profit-oriented print sphere, assessing its powerful influence of the publishing market, but also the belief that fiction can address impending social issues to change the readers in a mass society. Through Undine’s materialistic and superficial behavior formulated by mass publishing culture, Wharton ultimately leads the readers to reflect themselves on what they have gained and lost. At the same time, she also guides them to evaluate the “real culture” Ralph Marvell tries to keep but fails. With this novel, Wharton makes immense efforts to prove that a simultaneous literary engagement of the social ills with the satisfaction of the profit motive is possible. Wharton also accomplishes here an unassailable literary thematic complexity; she endeavors to make her novel’s status part of a counter-narrative to mass publishing culture, the profit-driven culture that led to creation of Undine.
참고문헌 (36)
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