『데이빗 코퍼필드』에서의 광대들 = Clowns in David Copperfield

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This article aims to illuminate the comic characters and their humor in Dickens`s novel David Copperfield in Bakhtinian point, and to clarify what the humorous characteristics are, and how they contribute to his reinforcement of socially critical messages in this novel. So far this novel has been called the only one of Dickens`s comic novels, even though it includes lots of social critical meanings. But it is true that Dickensian critics couldn`t make sure of the clear reasons why it is both very interesting and critical. Furthermore, it is also true that this novel has been criticized as a clumsy one in the realistic, psycho-analytic, dramatic angle. This approach to Dickensian comic characters through Bakhtinian fool, clown, and rogue concepts here could make up for or correct such criticisms, and reevaluate Dickens`s humor and social criticisms in the context of general public culture. Bakhtin believes oppression by social ideologies prevent us from having good mutual relationships and divides our society. He thinks laughter liberates us from such oppression and restores our good relationships. As he applied his concepts based on the laughter of Middle Ages to Rabelais`s novels, and examined what the authentically liberating power in Rabelais`s laughter is, this article could clarify the liberating power of laughter by Dickens`s comic characters, such as Mr and Mrs Micawber, Dick, Miss Betsey Trotwood and Miss Mowcher. In this novel, they often lead comic happenings, and such happenings are very similar to carnival-amusements including burning the dummy of the czar who has oppressed his or her citizenry. Especially, Dickens`s comic characters`s social criticisms, in the case of this novel, contain many complaints of social marginers, even though he has been labelled as being conservative politically. They always criticize the ideological absurdities in their society through the humorous words and behaviors in their comic happenings, like those of a carnival fool or clown in his or her amusements. This shows Dickens achieves both laughter and social criticism in David Copperfield by using Rabelaisian characterization-devices based on his general public culture. Like Bakhtin and Rabelais, Dickens seems to have believed that when we all truly liberate ourselves from the oppression of social ideologies, we can have desirable relationships between ourselves, and also solve social problems positively.

참고문헌 (Reference)

1 베르그송, 앙리, "웃음" 세계사 1992

2 최영, "셰익스피어의 광대연구: 민중극 전통의 변형과 그 사회적 기능" 34 : 309-334, 1998

3 Williams, Raymond, "Writing in Society" Verso 1984

4 Collins, Wilkie, "Wilkie Collins: The Critical Heritage" Routledge 1974

5 Bakhtin, M. M., "Toward a Reworking of the Dostoevsky Book" Appendix 2 in Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics 283-302,

6 Dickens, Charles, "The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" Penguin 1999

7 Forster, John, "The Life of Charles Dickens I, II" J. M. Dent & Sons 1966

8 Williams, Raymond, "The English Novel: from Dickens to Lawrence" Paladin 1974

9 Bakhtin, M. M., "Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics" the University of Minnesota Press 1993

10 Dickens, Charles, "Little Dorrit" Penguin 1998

11 Leavis, F. R., "Dickens: The Novelist" Penguin Books 1970

12 Kincaid, James R., "Dickens and the Rhetoric of Laughter" Oxford University Press 1971

13 Stone, Harry, "Dickens and the Invisible World.: Fairy Tales, Fantasy, and Novel-Making" Indiana University Press 1979

14 Schlicke, Paul, "Dickens and Popular Entertainment" Allen & Unwin 1985

15 House, Humphrey, "Dickens World" Oxford Press 1976

16 Dickens, Charles, "David Copperfield" The Modern Library 2000

17 Miller, J. Hillis, "Charles Dickens: The World of his Novels" Harvard University Press 1965

18 Daldry, Graham, "Charles Dickens and the Form of the Novel: Fiction and Narrative in Dickens' Work" Croom Helm 1987

19 Bradbury, Nicola, "An Introduction and Notes" Penguin 2003

20 Eagleton, Terry, ""Preface," Bleak House" Penguin 2003

21 Warmold, Mark, ""Intorduction," The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club" Penguin 1999

22 Bakhtin, M. M., ""Forms of Time and the Chronotope in the Novel," The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays" University of Texas Press 84-258, 1981

23 Bakhtin, M. M., ""Discourse in the Novel," The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays" University of Texas Press 259-421, 1981

24 Bradbury, Nicola, ""Dickens and the Form of the Novel," The Cambridge Companion to Charles Dickens" Cambridge University Press 152-164, 2001

25 Frye, Northrop, ""Dickens and the Comedy of Humours," Modern Critical Views 85: Charles Dickens" Chelsea House Publishers 71-92, 1987