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「좋은 사람은 찾기 힘들다」와 윤리의 가능성

A Good Man Is Hard to Find’ and the Possibility of Ethics

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This paper deals with the ethical aspect in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” with its focus on ‘the responsibility to the other.’ The story unfolds the duel between the deceitful and hypocritical grandmother and the violent murderer The Misfit, who also has a very serious attitude on life and God. In many cases, the encounter of the two characters and the grandmother’s unexpected response to The Misfit have been exploited to suggest that God blessed and redeemed her. But in the light of the ethical perspective, these events are presented in a highly figural plot depicting the aporia of the responsibility to the other, which requires to experience an undecidability between the absolute and the general. The decision of an ethical subject must be grounded on generalized law or program, but at the same time, on the singularity of an individual case. The grandmother’s embracing of The Misfit who had killed all her family encapsulates the aporia of responsibility and imparts the denouement with the possibility of the ethics of the other. The dismaying behavior provokes to reflect on the precondition of the ethical responsibility and tells us what it means to be an ethical subject.

Abstract

This paper deals with the ethical aspect in Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” with its focus on ‘the responsibility to the other.’ The story unfolds the duel between the deceitful and hypocritical grandmother and the violent murderer The Misfit, who also has a very serious attitude on life and God. In many cases, the encounter of the two characters and the grandmother’s unexpected response to The Misfit have been exploited to suggest that God blessed and redeemed her. But in the light of the ethical perspective, these events are presented in a highly figural plot depicting the aporia of the responsibility to the other, which requires to experience an undecidability between the absolute and the general. The decision of an ethical subject must be grounded on generalized law or program, but at the same time, on the singularity of an individual case. The grandmother’s embracing of The Misfit who had killed all her family encapsulates the aporia of responsibility and imparts the denouement with the possibility of the ethics of the other. The dismaying behavior provokes to reflect on the precondition of the ethical responsibility and tells us what it means to be an ethical subject.

참고문헌 (19)

  1. Asals, Frederick, "Flannery O’Connor: The Imagination of Extremity" (1982), U of Georgia P
  2. Bandy, Stephen C., "‘One of my babies’: The Misfit and the Grandmother", Studies in Short Fiction, 33(1), pp.107~117 (1996)
  3. Basselin, Timothy J., "Flannery O’Connor: Writing a Theology of Disabled Humanity" (2013), Baylor UP
  4. Derrida, Jacques, "Force of Law: The Mystical Foundation of Authority", Cardozo Law Review, 11(5-6), pp.920~1045 (1990)
  5. Derrida, Jacques, "The Gift of Death and Literature in Secret" (2008), U of Chicago P
  6. Jones, Madison, "A Good Man’s Predicament", The Southern Review, 20, pp.836~841 (1984)
  7. Kierkegaard, Søren, "Fear and Trembling" (1985), Penguin
  8. Lasseter, Victor, "The Genesis of Flannery O’connor’s ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’", Studies in American Fiction, 10(2), pp.227~232 (1982)
  9. Levinas, Emmanuel, "Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority" (1991), Kluwer Academic
  10. Llewelyn, John, "Appositions of Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas" (2002), Indiana UP
  11. Ochshorn, Kathleen G., "A Cloak of Grace: Contradiction in ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find’", Studies in American Fiction, 18(1), pp.113~117 (1990)
  12. O’Connor, Flannery, "The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor", pp.271~291 (1971), Farrar, Strauss & Giroux
  13. O’Connor, Flannery, "The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor", pp.117~133 (1971), Farrar, Strauss & Giroux
  14. O’Connor, Flannery, "The Habit of Being" (1979), Farrar, Strauss & Giroux
  15. O’Connor, Flannery, "Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose" (1969), Farrar, Strauss & Giroux
  16. Renner, Stanley, "Secular Meaning in ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’", College Literature, 9(2), pp.123~132 (1982)
  17. Richard, Claude, "Flannery O’Connor: A Study of Short Fiction", pp.213~218 (1988), Twayne Publishers
  18. Spivey, Ted R., "Flannery O’Connor: The Woman, the Thinker, the Visionary" (1995), Mercer UP
  19. Thiemann, Fred R., "Usurping the Logos: Clichés in O’Connor’s ‘Good Country People’", The Flannery O’Connor Bulletin, 24, pp.46~56 (1995)

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