감상주의와 공리주의 도덕관을 중심으로 살펴 본『엉클 톰스 캐빈』과 『허클베리 핀의 모험』

Abstract

Sentimental and Utilitarian Morality in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn This paper attempts to look into the moral theme of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which had far-reaching consequences late in the 19th century. Each of Stowe and Twain, in terms of sentimental and utilitarian morality, was willing to get over the limitation of rigorous Calvinism which had had considerable effect on American religious, intellectual, and moral world till then. Especially, it seems that Stowe had the strong attachment to “childhood, motherhood, and home” as the source of an altruism and moral sense by sentimentalists. Uncle Tom’s Cabin is considered to be fit for the sentimental idealization of literature which contributes to purifying human sentiments and uplifting the moral sense. Both her good white people and Tom, a good and faithful slave, were portrayed as the carriers of Stowe’s Christian ideal and moral message rather than as real and ordinary people. Stowe’s optimistic vision of reality is nowhere more outstanding than in her good white people and Tom. On the contrary Twain assumed a critical attitude toward this sentimental idealization because he thought that it might actually be counterproductive by obscuring an immoral reality. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn clearly described the tragic reality of the southern United States’s slaves through the failure of more intellectual and self-regulating black slave, Jim than Tom. It is important to note that the journey of Huck and Jim strengthens the moral sense and social sympathy through various experiences. Therefore this work must be read to suggest a new American identity and pragmatic morality rather than a romantic retreat from the society. Honest morality deeply rooted in reality and experience is the greatest value Twain drew from utilitarianism.