헨리 제임스의 『 비극적 시신』의 여배우 미리엄: 재현적 연기와 탈근대적 여성성

Abstract

In The Tragic Muse Miriam's performance simultaneously reiterates and deviates from the sexually differentiated law, revealing the desire for female sexuality through her body. Given that the biological body is not prelinguistic "outside," to resort to woman's body for female sexuality is always liable for biological essentialism. But her body, through which her performance is acted out, should not be considered the biologically defined woman's body, for what is at stake in her performance is not the body itself, but the "plasticity of the body," which enables the performing body to occasion the femininity in the spatio-temporally specified context. Miriam as an actress explores the way femininity as representation actively appropriates the representational function, addressing female sexuality as alterity at the same moment. Advancing from the crude imitation to the performance producing the effect of realness, she achieves the "heterogeneous, theatrical self." Miriam's performance, with her "plasticity of the body," foreshadows post-modern concept of femininity.