시암 셀바두라이의 『퍼니 보이』 —에스니시티와 퀴어 정체성 (Ethnicity and Queer Identity in Shyam Selvadurai's Funny Boy)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국현대영미소설학회
· 수록지 정보 : 현대영미소설 / 16권 / 3호 / 281 ~ 302페이지
· 저자명 : 이현주

초록

Funny Boy written by a Sri Lankan Canadian novelist, Shyam Selvadurai, who emigrated to Canada with his family when he was nineteen after the 1983 Colombo riots, shows growing up as a gay who belongs to both sexual and ethnic minority in Sri Lanka. The personal and the political are much interrelated in Selvadurai's writing. The characters in the novel are in a place that has been colonized by Western powers for about 400 years. Western ideas such as bourgeois respectability and Victorian morality have been incorporated into Sri Lanka. Since Sri Lanka was independent of the Britain, there has been the conflict between the Sinhalese and the Tamil called the Sri Lankan civil war for 26 years. The origin of modern conflict goes back to the British colonial policy of divide and rule sowed the seeds of renewed tensions between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities after independence.
All the colonial societies in their struggle for independence and the establishment of a new nation, reform and redefine their identity. This drive for a cultural identity demands the form of a collective and essential identity which is shared by people with a common ancestry and history. However, as Selvadurai points out, a sense of cultural identity is transforming itself, making new over and over again in the process of becoming. There is no unchanging and essential cultural identity.
Nevertheless Sir Lankan society ruled by the Sinhalese community, which forms the majority of the population, has suppressed several ethnic minorities such as the Tamil, Moors, Burghers and the Malays. While the Sinhalese is reconstructing essential nationality, the society excludes minorities like homo sacer: ethnic minorities, non-hetero sexualities, and exiles and so on.
This article focuses on ethnic and sexual minority through the main character, Arjie who becomes a gay in Selvadurai's Funny Boy. Unlike his peers, Arjie is interested in wearing beautiful saris and jewelry. He loves playing bride-bride with girl cousins rather than playing cricket with his boy cousins since childhood. Arjie's growing recognition of his funny sexuality cannot be accepted in male-dominated heterosexual family, school, and nation. Those who are excluded from dominating power include Arjie, Amma, Radha, Daryl, Doris, Jegan, and Shehan. Arjie's arising awareness of gendered and ethnicized identities develops through the relationship with these minorities.

영어초록

Funny Boy written by a Sri Lankan Canadian novelist, Shyam Selvadurai, who emigrated to Canada with his family when he was nineteen after the 1983 Colombo riots, shows growing up as a gay who belongs to both sexual and ethnic minority in Sri Lanka. The personal and the political are much interrelated in Selvadurai's writing. The characters in the novel are in a place that has been colonized by Western powers for about 400 years. Western ideas such as bourgeois respectability and Victorian morality have been incorporated into Sri Lanka. Since Sri Lanka was independent of the Britain, there has been the conflict between the Sinhalese and the Tamil called the Sri Lankan civil war for 26 years. The origin of modern conflict goes back to the British colonial policy of divide and rule sowed the seeds of renewed tensions between the Sinhalese and Tamil communities after independence.
All the colonial societies in their struggle for independence and the establishment of a new nation, reform and redefine their identity. This drive for a cultural identity demands the form of a collective and essential identity which is shared by people with a common ancestry and history. However, as Selvadurai points out, a sense of cultural identity is transforming itself, making new over and over again in the process of becoming. There is no unchanging and essential cultural identity.
Nevertheless Sir Lankan society ruled by the Sinhalese community, which forms the majority of the population, has suppressed several ethnic minorities such as the Tamil, Moors, Burghers and the Malays. While the Sinhalese is reconstructing essential nationality, the society excludes minorities like homo sacer: ethnic minorities, non-hetero sexualities, and exiles and so on.
This article focuses on ethnic and sexual minority through the main character, Arjie who becomes a gay in Selvadurai's Funny Boy. Unlike his peers, Arjie is interested in wearing beautiful saris and jewelry. He loves playing bride-bride with girl cousins rather than playing cricket with his boy cousins since childhood. Arjie's growing recognition of his funny sexuality cannot be accepted in male-dominated heterosexual family, school, and nation. Those who are excluded from dominating power include Arjie, Amma, Radha, Daryl, Doris, Jegan, and Shehan. Arjie's arising awareness of gendered and ethnicized identities develops through the relationship with these minorities.

참고자료

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