걸리버의 광기: 멜랑꼴리적 주체와 <걸리버 여행기>
Gulliver’s Madness: Gulliver as a Freudian Melancholic Subject in Gulliver’s Travels
0
조회
0
다운로드
0
인용
0
참고문헌
키워드
초록
This essay conceives Gulliver’s madness in Gulliver’s Travels as a psychotic symptom of melancholia that Sigmund Freud explores in “Mourning and Melancholia,” and suggests that Gulliver’s madness paradoxically sheds a light on the disturbing truth of humanity, because a melancholic has “a keener eye for the truth than other people who are not melancholic,” as Freud avers. Freud explains that a melancholic subject does not invest the libido that is withdrawn from the loss of object onto other object(s) as in normal cases but brings it back on him/herself, and then uses it in identifying with the abandoned object in a narcissistic or regressive identification, while his/her ambivalent feeling toward the object, particularly the feeling of hate, turns back into him/herself that is identified with the lost object. Thus self-criticism, a significant symptom of melancholia that often leads to suicide, comes from the structural powerlessness of a melancholic subject confronting the loss of the loved object. Gulliver’s depressed state after he reluctantly leaves the Houyhnhnmland mostly derives from his loss of the loved object Houyhnhnm. As a melancholic subject, Gulliver invests the withdrawn libido, which was cathected with the ideal horse, in himself and uses it in identifying with the Houyhnhnm, while his ambivalent feeling toward Houyhnhnms comes back to himself as now identified with them, and generates the hatred of both himself and humanity. The outbreak of melancholia in Gulliver just when he is abandoned by the Houyhnhnms is not unexpected considering the fact that he has formerly relied on the mechanism of narcissistic identification in Brobdingnag. Book 4 achieves a climax in his disenchantment with humanity particularly since Houyhnhnmland has a double structure that is composed of Houyhnhnm and Yahoo and his narcissistic identification with Houyhnhnm becomes proportionately more violent with his denial of being a Yahoo. Gulliver’s madness as a satirical weapon against human absurdity hints at the unique nature of literature whereby a truth is sometimes revealed only through madness.
Abstract
This essay conceives Gulliver’s madness in Gulliver’s Travels as a psychotic symptom of melancholia that Sigmund Freud explores in “Mourning and Melancholia,” and suggests that Gulliver’s madness paradoxically sheds a light on the disturbing truth of humanity, because a melancholic has “a keener eye for the truth than other people who are not melancholic,” as Freud avers. Freud explains that a melancholic subject does not invest the libido that is withdrawn from the loss of object onto other object(s) as in normal cases but brings it back on him/herself, and then uses it in identifying with the abandoned object in a narcissistic or regressive identification, while his/her ambivalent feeling toward the object, particularly the feeling of hate, turns back into him/herself that is identified with the lost object. Thus self-criticism, a significant symptom of melancholia that often leads to suicide, comes from the structural powerlessness of a melancholic subject confronting the loss of the loved object. Gulliver’s depressed state after he reluctantly leaves the Houyhnhnmland mostly derives from his loss of the loved object Houyhnhnm. As a melancholic subject, Gulliver invests the withdrawn libido, which was cathected with the ideal horse, in himself and uses it in identifying with the Houyhnhnm, while his ambivalent feeling toward Houyhnhnms comes back to himself as now identified with them, and generates the hatred of both himself and humanity. The outbreak of melancholia in Gulliver just when he is abandoned by the Houyhnhnms is not unexpected considering the fact that he has formerly relied on the mechanism of narcissistic identification in Brobdingnag. Book 4 achieves a climax in his disenchantment with humanity particularly since Houyhnhnmland has a double structure that is composed of Houyhnhnm and Yahoo and his narcissistic identification with Houyhnhnm becomes proportionately more violent with his denial of being a Yahoo. Gulliver’s madness as a satirical weapon against human absurdity hints at the unique nature of literature whereby a truth is sometimes revealed only through madness.
참고문헌 (16)
- 맹정현, "멜랑꼴리의 검은 마술: 애도와 멜랑꼴리의 정신분석" (2015), 책담
- 이혜수, "근대적 (반)주체로서의 걸리버:『걸리버 여행기』의 식민주의적 맥락을 중심으로", 영미문학연구, (18), pp.35~62 (2010), 영미문학연구회
- 전인한, "『걸리버 여행기』: 광기의 타당성", 안과밖:영미문학연구, 12, pp.158~177 (2002), 영미문학연구회
- Defoe, Daniel, "Robinson Crusoe" (1983), Oxford UP
- Elliot, Robert, "The Power of Satire" (1960), Princeton UP
- Fabricant, Carole, "Swift's Landscape" (1982), Johns Hopkins UP
- Freud, Sigmund, "The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud" (1957), The Hogarth P
- McKeon, Michael, "The Origins of the English Novel 1600-1740" (1987), Johns Hopkins UP
- Mullan, John, "Sentiment and Sociability: The Language of Feeling in the Eighteenth Century" (1988), Oxford UP
- Paulson, Ronald, "Don Quixote in England : The Aesthetics of Laughter" (1998), Johns Hopkins UP
- Smith, Frederik, "The Genres of Gulliver's Travels" (1990), U of Delaware P
- Stallybrass, Peter, "The Politics and Poetics of Transgression" (1986), Cornell UP
- Strachey, James, "The Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud" (1917), The Hogarth P
- Swift, Jonathan, "Gulliver's Travels" (1986), Oxford UP
- Tave, Stuart, "The Amiable Humorist : A Study in the Comic Theory and Criticism of the Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries" (1960), U of Chicago P
- Watt, Ian, "The Characters of Swift's Satire" (1983), U of Delaware P