이상적인 여성의 욕망하는 몸: 『설득』의 여주인공 앤 엘리엇 (The Desiring Body of an Ideal Woman: Anne Elliot in Persuasion)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국18세기영문학회
· 수록지 정보 : 18세기영문학 / 8권 / 1호 / 33 ~ 68페이지
· 저자명 : 김진아

초록

In Jane Austen's last novel Persuasion, the faded old-maid heroine Anne Elliot, who lost her youth and beauty after the loss of her first love, is presented as a woman who embodies the gender ideal of the period. The ideal feminine woman in Jane Austen's period is first and foremost characterized by the lack of her own desire--sexual or otherwise. The epithets to describe the ideal female in this period are ‘self-denying,' ‘self-abnegating,' and ‘self-sacrificing.' However, this novel shows that Anne Elliot, as an ideal model woman, actually harbors her own strong and passionate desire for her lost lover Captain Wentworth. Specifically, Anne Elliot's body becomes the site in which bodily sensations, such as agitations, nervousness, and raptures are registered; her body evinces the existence of her sexual and erotic desires. What Austen does in this novel is a creation of a heroine that perfectly fits the self-denying gender ideal of the period and simultaneously a desiring subject with a body full of erotic longings and desire. The gender ideology of the period condemns desiring women as unfeminine and therefore ‘unnatural.’ By creating a perfectly feminine ideal woman Anne Elliot as a desiring subject, Austen tries to naturalize a new idea of woman and thereby to expand the horizon of the gender discourse of her own period.

영어초록

In Jane Austen's last novel Persuasion, the faded old-maid heroine Anne Elliot, who lost her youth and beauty after the loss of her first love, is presented as a woman who embodies the gender ideal of the period. The ideal feminine woman in Jane Austen's period is first and foremost characterized by the lack of her own desire--sexual or otherwise. The epithets to describe the ideal female in this period are ‘self-denying,' ‘self-abnegating,' and ‘self-sacrificing.' However, this novel shows that Anne Elliot, as an ideal model woman, actually harbors her own strong and passionate desire for her lost lover Captain Wentworth. Specifically, Anne Elliot's body becomes the site in which bodily sensations, such as agitations, nervousness, and raptures are registered; her body evinces the existence of her sexual and erotic desires. What Austen does in this novel is a creation of a heroine that perfectly fits the self-denying gender ideal of the period and simultaneously a desiring subject with a body full of erotic longings and desire. The gender ideology of the period condemns desiring women as unfeminine and therefore ‘unnatural.’ By creating a perfectly feminine ideal woman Anne Elliot as a desiring subject, Austen tries to naturalize a new idea of woman and thereby to expand the horizon of the gender discourse of her own period.

참고자료

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