『리어왕』의 현대적 재해석으로서의 <1천 에이커>: 소설과 영화 (A Thousand Acres as Contemporary Reinterpretations of King Lear: the Novel and the Film)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 문학과영상학회
· 수록지 정보 : 문학과 영상 / 12권 / 1호 / 233 ~ 259페이지
· 저자명 : 이형식

초록

A Thousand Acres as Contemporary Reinterpretations of King Lear: the Novel and the Film There is an interesting intertextual relations among King Lear, Jane Smiley’s novel A Thousand Acres, and its film adaptation. While King Lear focuses on the male protagonist’s journey through his rash decision, suffering, final anagnorisis, A Thousand Acres is narrated through the eldest daughter’s perspective. Intrigued by the fact that the two daughters’ irrational hostility and brutality toward their father remain unexplained until the end, Smiley attempts to dig deeper into the relation between father and daughters. The novel reveals that the father’s attitude toward land can be equated with his attitude toward his daughters’ bodies which can be abused as objects of his desire. Beneath the enterprise of establishing grand farm is buried the men’s relentless and inhumane exploitation of land and female members of the family. The novel is a story of Ginny who achieves her recognition through denial of her father’s “grand history” and patriarchy.
When this novel was adapted into a film, its story concerning a female character coming to recognition and strong female bonding lent itself to the established genre of melodrama. Even though the genre of melodrama was much criticized because of sentimentality and artificial stylization, recent feminist critics also discovered fertile ground for social criticism as well as subversive elements which attacked suffocating atmosphere of patriarchal society. In the process of adaption, however, the subversive elements in the original novel were not included because of the limited screen time, while scenes between two daughters take significant portion of the whole film, emphasizing the sisterly love and bonding. Plots involving toxic chemicals poisoning the land and the female body were omitted, thereby negating the possibility of social criticism. The resulting film adheres to the formula of melodrama, providing false sense of happiness at the end of the film.

영어초록

A Thousand Acres as Contemporary Reinterpretations of King Lear: the Novel and the Film There is an interesting intertextual relations among King Lear, Jane Smiley’s novel A Thousand Acres, and its film adaptation. While King Lear focuses on the male protagonist’s journey through his rash decision, suffering, final anagnorisis, A Thousand Acres is narrated through the eldest daughter’s perspective. Intrigued by the fact that the two daughters’ irrational hostility and brutality toward their father remain unexplained until the end, Smiley attempts to dig deeper into the relation between father and daughters. The novel reveals that the father’s attitude toward land can be equated with his attitude toward his daughters’ bodies which can be abused as objects of his desire. Beneath the enterprise of establishing grand farm is buried the men’s relentless and inhumane exploitation of land and female members of the family. The novel is a story of Ginny who achieves her recognition through denial of her father’s “grand history” and patriarchy.
When this novel was adapted into a film, its story concerning a female character coming to recognition and strong female bonding lent itself to the established genre of melodrama. Even though the genre of melodrama was much criticized because of sentimentality and artificial stylization, recent feminist critics also discovered fertile ground for social criticism as well as subversive elements which attacked suffocating atmosphere of patriarchal society. In the process of adaption, however, the subversive elements in the original novel were not included because of the limited screen time, while scenes between two daughters take significant portion of the whole film, emphasizing the sisterly love and bonding. Plots involving toxic chemicals poisoning the land and the female body were omitted, thereby negating the possibility of social criticism. The resulting film adheres to the formula of melodrama, providing false sense of happiness at the end of the film.

참고자료

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