포스트식민주의 고딕소설과 유령 이야기의 정치학 : 진 리스의 Wide Sargasso Sea와 J. M. 쿳시의 In the Heart of the Country를 중심으로

This paper explores the issue of un/speakability of ghosts in postcolonial gothic novels, focusing on two female protagonists, Antoinette in Jean Rhys’ Wide Sargasso Sea and Magda in J. M. Coetzee’s In the Heart of the Country. Following the theoretical leads of Gayatri Spivak, Homi Bhabha and Chandra Mohanty, this paper reads both Rhys’ and Coetzee’s works as postcolonial Gothic genre in which Antoinette and Magda attempt to enunciate and represent themselves from the position of absence in the dominant field of knowledge. Antoinette suffers from her unstable identity or culturally hybridized social status and is often regarded as an outsider, being rebuffed both within her birthplace and in England. Magda is also an isolated woman on her Boer farmer father’s farm in colonial and patriarchal South Africa. Magda’s marginalized voice, however, continuously seeks for the intimate personal and communal reciprocity from which she can regain her strength and active voice. However, their voices and willingness to represent themselves eventually failedto revolt against the patriarchal and colonial society. This paper further questions who and what made these female characters silent and how we should approach the issues. To answer these questions, I problematize the oppressive ideological mechanisms in the representative realm that often frustrates the victimized women’s attempts to speak out.