“우린 이대로가 좋아요!” —『애스펀의 편지』로 읽는 이리가라이식 여성성 (“We Like It Ourselves!”: Reading Female Sexuality in The Aspern Papers)

서지정보

· 발행기관 : 한국영어영문학회
· 수록지 정보 : 영어영문학 / 55권 / 1호 / 153 ~ 176페이지
· 저자명 : 남수영

초록

This paper attempts an allegorical reading of female sexuality in Henry
James’ The Aspern Papers, wherein the narrator reveals his obsession with
the love letters of the dead poet, Jeffrey Aspern. Not only the old papers, but
does he also fetishize female protagonists in order to maintain his belief in the
“great poet.” Discussing such fetishistic elements in the novella is in order
firstly to reveal the self-splitting logic of phallocentric language, and secondly
to analyze the limitation of such language, which resonates with the Freudian
construction of female sexuality as critically presented by Irigary.
The first part of this study explains the binary structure of The Aspern
Papers crystalized in the symbolic courtship in the Bordereaus’ garden. It also
represents the psychological mindset of the narrator/protagonist: symbolically
located “outside,” the narrator describes the two Bordereaus as being closed
“inside” in a dark mansion, concealing the precious papers from him and the
public. In other words, the women are nothing but the obstacle for the selfelected
agent, the narrator, from the publication of the language and ideas of
the “great man”. The women are associated with secrecy and surreptitiousness,
while the man with transparency and the truth.
Second part of this paper mimics this In/Out binary as a means to reveal
insufficiency, if not impropriety, of the predominant discourse of female sexuality
constructed and controlled from the male perspective. Employing
Irigary’s argument, this paper reads the female characters as allegory for
female sexual organs, which explains the narrator’s inevitable failure. That is,
female sexuality is something that cannot be articulated by the intruding language
of a masculine subject. since the female sex as such is not only plural
but also harmonious and self-contained,

영어초록

This paper attempts an allegorical reading of female sexuality in Henry
James’ The Aspern Papers, wherein the narrator reveals his obsession with
the love letters of the dead poet, Jeffrey Aspern. Not only the old papers, but
does he also fetishize female protagonists in order to maintain his belief in the
“great poet.” Discussing such fetishistic elements in the novella is in order
firstly to reveal the self-splitting logic of phallocentric language, and secondly
to analyze the limitation of such language, which resonates with the Freudian
construction of female sexuality as critically presented by Irigary.
The first part of this study explains the binary structure of The Aspern
Papers crystalized in the symbolic courtship in the Bordereaus’ garden. It also
represents the psychological mindset of the narrator/protagonist: symbolically
located “outside,” the narrator describes the two Bordereaus as being closed
“inside” in a dark mansion, concealing the precious papers from him and the
public. In other words, the women are nothing but the obstacle for the selfelected
agent, the narrator, from the publication of the language and ideas of
the “great man”. The women are associated with secrecy and surreptitiousness,
while the man with transparency and the truth.
Second part of this paper mimics this In/Out binary as a means to reveal
insufficiency, if not impropriety, of the predominant discourse of female sexuality
constructed and controlled from the male perspective. Employing
Irigary’s argument, this paper reads the female characters as allegory for
female sexual organs, which explains the narrator’s inevitable failure. That is,
female sexuality is something that cannot be articulated by the intruding language
of a masculine subject. since the female sex as such is not only plural
but also harmonious and self-contained,

참고자료

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