토니 모리슨의 긍정과 화합의 신 흑인미학:『그 아이에게 신의 가호가 있기를』 연구

조비결 한국중앙영어영문학회 2016 영어영문학연구 Vol.58 No.2

This paper aims to elucidate Toni Morrison’s New Black Aesthetics embodied in her most recent novel God Help The Child in 2015. The main character in this novel, Bride, is unique in terms of a highly self-esteemed and dignified individual and a good member of society. I attempt to shed light on the issue of what I envision to be Toni Morrison’s New Black Aesthetics with the main character differentiated from her previous works. The issue that I pursue through this novel is New Black Aesthetics as a topic suggesting positivity and harmony in the multiracial society, going beyond the recognition of black identity and beauty. Underneath her stunning career woman, Bride is a traumatized person rejected by her light-skinned mother, Sweetness. Toni Morrison delineates her characters’ painful traumatized stories of child abuse and skin privileges so that they can break their silence and speak their unspeakable things to move forward. In this regard, Toni Morrison instills her new paradigm, the New Black Aesthetics of positivity and harmony, as a good member of the diversified society to everyone including the African American. From this perspective, I argue that Toni Morrison embodies the New Black Aesthetics in God Help The Child.

정동 윤리의 문학 텍스트 : 토니 모리슨의 그 아이에게 신의 가호가 있기를 (God Help the Child)

조비결 동국대학교 영어권문화연구소 2019 영어권문화연구 Vol.12 No.1

The purpose of this study is to explore Toni Morrison's recent novel, God Help the Child on the basis of the affect theory. In the affect theory, affect is conceptualized as an interactive dimension including feeling and emotion. Skin color works as negative affect because of skin privileges as a strategy of the white supremacy in American society. It addresses issues of both affect and ethics as each provides a useful mechanism for exploring the other. God Help The Child delineates the journey of Bride's change of perception on skin color from the traumatic life in childhood to the positive life in adulthood affected by other people and environment. Due to her “midnight black” skin color, in her childhood, she is affected by others as a ‘distasteful’ person, in particular, unfairly abandoned by her father and rejected by her light-skinned mother. Her skin color was regarded by others as a ‘negative affect’ of ‘distaste’ including disgust and repulsion. In her adulthood, however, she is positively affected as ‘taste’ of attracting people by standing out her black skin with only white clothes. Becoming a tasteful and happy person affected by others, she establishes self-esteem and builds trust, responsibility and love. By portraying black skin color as positive affect, Toni Morrison shows a new paradigm to change public perception of the Black, emphasizing egalitarianism in a democratic society. In this regard, God Help The Child by Toni Morrison can be read the literary text of affect ethics. .

저항 미학으로서의 상호텍스트성: 리처드 라이트의 『토박이』와 토니 모리슨의 '집'

조비결 한국중앙영어영문학회 2018 영어영문학연구 Vol.60 No.1

This essay aims to explore the intertextuality between Toni Morrison’ Home and Richard Wright’s Native Son in terms of thematic approach and narrative strategy. In Native Son published in 1940, Wright depicts a story of a black male protagonist, Bigger Thomas, resisting on social injustice and inequality in the world of absolute dominance of white power. Morrison also delineates the black’s resistance on social injustice in Home published in 2012. In addition to their common thematic approach, they employs similar multi-layered narrative strategies such as a stream of consciousness technique, interior monologue, omniscient-author narrative, and italicizing or capitalizing text to depict their protagonist’s psyches. With these narrative skills, they embody the aesthetics of resistance. Consequently, Toni Morrison’s Home and Richard Wright’s Native Son have intertextuality in terms of the themes sublimating black’s resistance against social injustice and inequality into self-actualization as well as the forms employing multi-layered narrative strategies in their novels. In this regard, I argue that their works can be read to readers as the text of the aesthetics of resistance.

AI 시대 창의적 교양 교육과 문학적 상상력 : 『클라라와 태양』 연구

조비결 한국중앙영어영문학회 2022 영어영문학연구 Vol.64 No.1

The article aims to explore the importance between literary imagination and liberal arts education for the next generation in the AI era. Liberal arts education is the key to the competency of the future. In this regard, universities motivates students to develop Four C’s essential competencies of communication, collaboration, critical thinking, and creativity. In this context, this study suggests that a literary text is one of the most creative and effective tools for them to enhance their capabilities. In particular, Klara and the Sun by Kazuo Ishiguro, a Nobel Literature Laureate, can be utilized the effective literary text for liberal arts education in the AI era by embodying the quintessential vision for AI and offering insight for the positive possibility of co-existence between human beings and AI. Therefore, the literary text like Ishiguro’s novel about the friendship between AI robot, Klara and human beings can be used one of the most useful tools for students’ capabilities integrating knowledge based on creativity and imagination. In conclusion, it is essential for students to strengthen literary imagination for creative liberal arts education through reading English literature to prepare for the AI era.

토니 모리슨 소설에 구현된 몸의 정치학

조비결 대한영어영문학회 2018 영어영문학연구 Vol.44 No.3

This essay explores how body politics embody in Toni Morrison’s novels, The Bluest Eye, Beloved, and Home. Morrison delineates black people as the victim of racial ideology or white supremacy. She postulates that blacks are the victim of body politics by white people in American history as a means to their political and ideological end. As Morrison puts it, blacks are people marked because of their skin color in America, I try to elucidate her novels in terms of body politics. There is negative body politics victimized by white supremacy through her works. In her first novel, The Bluest Eye, she portrays black body as a victim of racial prejudice by white people. She also depicts body politics of black people by whites’ slavocracy in Beloved, her representative novel. In her recent novel, Home can be also read the text of black body politics of war and eugenics under the white supremacy. At the same time, she suggests solutions of positive body politics including communal ethics and blacks’ responsibility and identity. Describing herself as an egalitarian, Morrison provides insight into an egalitarian hybrid society based on tolerance by embodying negative body politics by white people and positive body politics by black people.

의사소통 행위와 담론 윤리의 텍스트 : 『남아있는 나날』 연구

조비결 한국중앙영어영문학회 2021 영어영문학연구 Vol.63 No.2

This paper aims to explore how Kazuo Ishiguro suggests the significance of communicative action and discourse ethics in his novel, The Remains of the Day based on the communicative action theory of Habermas. As Habermas clarifies communicative action and discourse ethics through mutual understanding, Ishiguro puts the emphasis on communicative action and discourse ethics with his narrative strategy through his main character. Stevens, the protagonist of the novel, serves as the first narrator but a unreliable narrator. He becomes the best communicator only when telling his story of private sphere and history of public sphere to the readers outside the novel. In contrast, he does not become an effective communicator in the novel. From this perspective, this paper attempts to postulate that Ishiguro implies the significance of communicative action and discourse ethics in light of the communicative action and discourse ethics by Harbermas. He tries to embody communicative action and discourse ethics in the public sphere by employing history as a technical device in the protagonist’s narrative. In addition, through the mechanism of memory, he defines Stevens as unreliable narrator and cowardice with the fear of expressing his emotion in spite of dignified and professional butler. At the end of the novel, Stevens’ personality develops further from a unreliable narrator and poor communicator to an effective and caring communicator. In conclusion, The Remains of the Day offers a philosophical insight on life and the significance of communicative action and discourse ethics through mutual understanding.

토니 모리슨의 『집』

조비결(Cho, Be-Kyoul) 강원대학교 인문과학연구소 2014 인문과학연구 Vol.0 No.40

In this paper, My goal is to elucidate core concepts like trauma and healing in Toni Morrison"s new novel in 2012, “Home,” a story of Frank Money, a traumatized Korean War veteran who returns to the U. S. in the 1950s. I explore that Toni Morrison, a truly egalitarian, posits her philosophical questions on the importance of the solidarity of community as well as the self-esteem of individual in this novel. To convey her perspective on these contents, I go on to examine rhetoric, the art of using language effectively and aesthetically, in terms of her writing strategy. First, I examine that Morrison conveys a traumatized protagonist from the Korean war, Frank"s psychology to her readers with the rhetoric of confession through monologue by employing italicized writing style to be indicative of his psychological chaotic state as a part of Toni Morrison"s writing strategy. Home is the odyssey of Frank, a traumatized protagonist from the Korean war, and Cee, his younger sister, another traumatized protagonist from the capitalistic city. After coming back to their hometown, they realize that their hometown is the best place in the world where they are so relieved and secured. Futhermore, their home is the true place that provide them with self-reliance and self-esteem. In this context, Toni Morrison elaborates how they are characterized as traumatized victims of war, capitalism as well as racial disparity through rhetoric and poetic stylistic technique. In conclusion, Toni Morrison lays out the value of African American communities which help one another to heal their trauma and have a sense of self-esteem. She also employs the rhetoric of confession, sorrow, persuasion in terms of writing strategy.

토니 모리슨의 공감과 소통의 미학

조비결(Cho, Be-Kyoul) 강원대학교 인문과학연구소 2015 인문과학연구 Vol.0 No.46

With her new novel in 2015, God Help The Child, I aims to elucidate Toni Morrison’s aesthetics and rhetorical devices for establishing self-esteem as an individual, an independent human being, good rapport among people and responsibility as a social member in terms of aesthetics of empathy and communication. Toni Morrison, the winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, powerfully delineates her characters’ traumatic stories so that they can break their silence and speak their unspeakable things to move beyond psychic survival into a form of recovery for their bright future with a variety of narrative strategies. To recount her characters’ stories, she employs various narrative strategies such as first-person soliloquy of confession, second-person dialogue and third person authorial narration intertwined between soliloquy and dialogue in order that they can have empathy and communicate with one another. Toni Morrison deliberately structures this novel to have an interactive, harmonious relationship and rapport among her characters as well as between her as an author and her readers through her unique narratives. I attempt to manifest her narrative strategies that she impart aesthetics of empathy and communication in this novel. By doing so, she stresses the importance of self-esteem and rapport among people living in the muticultural and multiracial society through empathy and communication in lieu of conflict and violence. With this perspective, I argue that Toni Morrison embodies aesthetics of empathy and communication in her new novel in 2015, God Help The Child.