‘정직함’의 이중성: 마크 트웨인의 「해들리버그를 타락시킨 남자」

Abstract

This study is an exploration of what it is to be an “honest man” in a specific community that controls its members’ lives, and of how the meaning of being honest will be changed by the effects of capitalism in Mark Twain’s “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg.” There are two important characters who symbolize two different meanings of being honest. First, the Richardses exist as a symbolic representation of the town’s people who the community needs. Dying in the end, they symbolize so-called useless virtues, such as honesty and nobility, insecurely standing between real life in a capitalist society and superficial thoughts concerning virtue. Second, Dr. Clay Harkness is rising in the gilded age and survives to the last. As the new honest man for the gilded age, he expresses his desire for money without reserve, and exploits his privilege to achieve his goal. “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” shows that the “honest man” eventually comes to mean the man who pursues his own strong desires for money and power. In addition, he is simply expected to follow the principles of capitalism. Such a tendency reveals the duplicity of honesty and remains a crucial trait of the twenty-first century, so-called ‘the second gilded age’ based on global capitalism.