공감, 보기, 그리고 감정노동 —『프랑켄스타인』의 아담 스미스 다시 읽기 (Sympathy, Seeing, and Affective Labor: Mary Shelley’s (Re-)Reading of Adam Smith in Frankenstein)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국영어영문학회
· 수록지 정보 : 영어영문학 / 58권 / 2호 / 189 ~ 215페이지
· 저자명 : 신경숙

초록

This paper reads Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) in light of the 18thcentury understanding of ‘sympathy’ including those of Hume and Smith and also in light of what Michael Hardt in our century has called “affective labor.”I argue that the imaginative capacity and “seeing” are crucial in understanding Smith’s idea of ‘sympathy.’ By showing how the monster’s ugliness precludes any human character from sympathizing with him, Mary Shelley exposes that Smith’s idea of sympathy fails to maintain social harmony. Mary Shelley revises Smith’s ‘sympathy’ and makes it more radical by suggesting that the active affective labor could bridge the epistemological distance lying between the agent concerned and the impartial spectator. I first read Smith’s idea of sympathy as an imaginative capacity which is inevitably influenced by ‘seeing’ and visual perception. Then I analyze the scenes in which the creature in Frankenstein fails to acquire any human sympathy due to his ugliness,and show how the specular nature of ‘sympathy’ is disrupted when one party is visually ugly and deformed. I conclude that affective labor and active moral reflection on the part of the spectator need to be provided when the agent concerned is ‘ugly’ and thus challenges our habitual epistemological boundary.
Shelley’s re-evaluation of Smith’s sympathy, thus, suggests that affective labor may not be something that women alone have to perform, but an ethical practice that concerns all human beings and that can transform the otherwise flawed human capacity for sympathy.

영어초록

This paper reads Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818) in light of the 18thcentury understanding of ‘sympathy’ including those of Hume and Smith and also in light of what Michael Hardt in our century has called “affective labor.”I argue that the imaginative capacity and “seeing” are crucial in understanding Smith’s idea of ‘sympathy.’ By showing how the monster’s ugliness precludes any human character from sympathizing with him, Mary Shelley exposes that Smith’s idea of sympathy fails to maintain social harmony. Mary Shelley revises Smith’s ‘sympathy’ and makes it more radical by suggesting that the active affective labor could bridge the epistemological distance lying between the agent concerned and the impartial spectator. I first read Smith’s idea of sympathy as an imaginative capacity which is inevitably influenced by ‘seeing’ and visual perception. Then I analyze the scenes in which the creature in Frankenstein fails to acquire any human sympathy due to his ugliness,and show how the specular nature of ‘sympathy’ is disrupted when one party is visually ugly and deformed. I conclude that affective labor and active moral reflection on the part of the spectator need to be provided when the agent concerned is ‘ugly’ and thus challenges our habitual epistemological boundary.
Shelley’s re-evaluation of Smith’s sympathy, thus, suggests that affective labor may not be something that women alone have to perform, but an ethical practice that concerns all human beings and that can transform the otherwise flawed human capacity for sympathy.

참고자료

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