전염병 서사에서 나타나는 혐오의 변증법: 그레그 베어(Greg Bear)의 다윈 시리즈(Darwin Series)를 중심으로

Abstract

Greg Bear’s Darwin series consisting of Darwin’s Radio (1999) and its sequel Darwin’s Children (2003) portrays the eschatological crisis caused by an endogenous retrovirus named SHEVA which causes a great pandemonium and disgust among people. This retrovirus triggers speciation by rapidly evolving the next generation in utero but does so in a way that plunges the world into chaos. The rapid outbreak and activation of SHEVA triggers widespread panic and social turmoil, which in turn lead to large-scale acts of violence against the infected. The chaos and resultant cruelty shown in both narratives arouse questions as to the paradoxical principles of disgust. On the surface level, Darwin series depicts how social conflicts derive from disgust among people who project their fear and horror onto the minorities while it also grapples with disgust on an evolutionary dimension. Evoking the possibility of redemption of the human world, creating a counter-discourse to human conflict and disgust. The posthuman existence of Shevites, a new species of humanity, represents the blurred distinction between nature and culture, not to speak of that of human and nonhuman; this post-humanity breaks with Cartesian dualism and thereby demands a new epistemology which presupposes network of human and nonhuman and their interrelatedness, negating anthropocentrism.