메리 셸리의 [최후의 인간]에 나타난 공감의 문제와 종에 대한 사유 (Thought Experiment on Sympathy and Species in Mary Shelley’s The Last Man)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국18세기영문학회
· 수록지 정보 : 18세기영문학 / 18권 / 1호 / 1 ~ 28페이지
· 저자명 : 오봉희

초록

Mary Shelley’s The Last Man published in 1826 tells a bleak story of the extinction of mankind by the plague from the perspective of the last man, Lionel Verney. This paper explores sympathy and mankind as a biological species in The Last Man, focusing on Verney and Adrian. As an orphan and outcast, Verney desires for human sympathy. His desire is satisfied when he is accepted into a civilized society through his friendship with Adrian. Unlike Verney, Adrian approaches sympathy in the broader context of community. He takes upon himself the task of helping others and wishes to make the earth a paradise for humans. But Adrian’s optimism for the future of mankind gets irrevocably destroyed at the outbreak of the plague. Sympathy turns out powerless against the invincible plague, although it is effective in resolving conflicts among humans. Now life is all that matters and all that everyone covets. The disaster of the plague clearly shows that humans are a biological being whose life depends on the organic mechanism of the body, not the lord of nature and other beings in it. As the continuity of mankind gets threatened, the fate of an individual human being becomes directly connected to the fate of mankind as a whole. Significantly, the plague wields its destructive power only upon humans. Nature remains fertile and abundant throughout the disaster of the plague, totally unaffected by the tragic annihilation of mankind. It leads us to think about the fact that mankind is one of many biological species in nature and to think about the puniness of mankind.

영어초록

Mary Shelley’s The Last Man published in 1826 tells a bleak story of the extinction of mankind by the plague from the perspective of the last man, Lionel Verney. This paper explores sympathy and mankind as a biological species in The Last Man, focusing on Verney and Adrian. As an orphan and outcast, Verney desires for human sympathy. His desire is satisfied when he is accepted into a civilized society through his friendship with Adrian. Unlike Verney, Adrian approaches sympathy in the broader context of community. He takes upon himself the task of helping others and wishes to make the earth a paradise for humans. But Adrian’s optimism for the future of mankind gets irrevocably destroyed at the outbreak of the plague. Sympathy turns out powerless against the invincible plague, although it is effective in resolving conflicts among humans. Now life is all that matters and all that everyone covets. The disaster of the plague clearly shows that humans are a biological being whose life depends on the organic mechanism of the body, not the lord of nature and other beings in it. As the continuity of mankind gets threatened, the fate of an individual human being becomes directly connected to the fate of mankind as a whole. Significantly, the plague wields its destructive power only upon humans. Nature remains fertile and abundant throughout the disaster of the plague, totally unaffected by the tragic annihilation of mankind. It leads us to think about the fact that mankind is one of many biological species in nature and to think about the puniness of mankind.

참고자료

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