근대적 (반)주체로서의 걸리버: 『걸리버 여행기』의 식민주의적 맥락을 중심으로 (Gulliver as a Modern (Anti-)Subject: A Reading of Gulliver’s Travels)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 영미문학연구회
· 수록지 정보 : 영미문학연구 / 18호 / 35 ~ 62페이지
· 저자명 : 이혜수

초록

In this paper, I read Gulliver’s Travels as a critique of a core myth of modernity, or an ideology of a ‘modern autonomous and self-determining subject,’ which is exemplarily played out in Robinson Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe presents a modern myth embodied in the character of Crusoe who singlehandedly achieves an autonomy in a desert island; Gulliver’s Travels criticizes the ideal of a modern autonomous subject through Gulliver, a parody of Crusoe, who repetitively ends up staying in a community to which he could not belong in a fundamental sense. After briefly discussing why we should read Gulliver’s Travels as a novel, albeit a different kind of the novel of ‘formal realism,’ I examine in what sense Gulliver is a modern subject with an empiricist mindset and a will to upward mobility in the first part. In the second part, I argue that Gulliver suffers a life of an ‘abject subject,’ a marginalized subject in the periphery of a community, particularly in his second travel to Brobdingnag, and take a look at how this life of an abject subject leads into Gulliver’s self-split or self-negation. Lastly, I suggest a new reading of the relationship of Houhynhnm and Yahoo as a colonizer and a colonial subject. According to this interpretation, Gulliver’ being torn between a desire to be a Houhynhnm and a denial of his Yahooness could be read as the rift of a colonial subject’s identity, which results in madness, or the Other of modern rationality. I indicate in conclusion that Gulliver’s madness is a sign that Swift’s critique of modernity does not pursue an alternative to historical modernity, yet it could remain sharp and poignant just because it did not explore an easy substitute for modernity, as we can see in his many other satires.

영어초록

In this paper, I read Gulliver’s Travels as a critique of a core myth of modernity, or an ideology of a ‘modern autonomous and self-determining subject,’ which is exemplarily played out in Robinson Crusoe. Robinson Crusoe presents a modern myth embodied in the character of Crusoe who singlehandedly achieves an autonomy in a desert island; Gulliver’s Travels criticizes the ideal of a modern autonomous subject through Gulliver, a parody of Crusoe, who repetitively ends up staying in a community to which he could not belong in a fundamental sense. After briefly discussing why we should read Gulliver’s Travels as a novel, albeit a different kind of the novel of ‘formal realism,’ I examine in what sense Gulliver is a modern subject with an empiricist mindset and a will to upward mobility in the first part. In the second part, I argue that Gulliver suffers a life of an ‘abject subject,’ a marginalized subject in the periphery of a community, particularly in his second travel to Brobdingnag, and take a look at how this life of an abject subject leads into Gulliver’s self-split or self-negation. Lastly, I suggest a new reading of the relationship of Houhynhnm and Yahoo as a colonizer and a colonial subject. According to this interpretation, Gulliver’ being torn between a desire to be a Houhynhnm and a denial of his Yahooness could be read as the rift of a colonial subject’s identity, which results in madness, or the Other of modern rationality. I indicate in conclusion that Gulliver’s madness is a sign that Swift’s critique of modernity does not pursue an alternative to historical modernity, yet it could remain sharp and poignant just because it did not explore an easy substitute for modernity, as we can see in his many other satires.

참고자료

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