트웨인의 미시시피 강 다시 읽기: 「미시시피강에서의 삶」 과 「헉클베리핀의 모험」에 나타난 초월근대성

Abstract

The purpose of the paper is to examine Twain's transmodern aspects through rereading the meanings of the Mississippi River represented in his Life on the Mississippi(1883) and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn(1884). In these two texts, the River is not a simple geographical background. The River crosses the border and closes the gap. In other words, In the Life on the Mississippi, the River is described as a cut-off player who alters the boundary lines and change the local habitat. In the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the River also acts not only a controller but also a producer of the journey of Huck and Jim. The River is regarded as a flow of Deleuzean ‘flight' not as an escape but as a regeneration. Through meditating the River, Twain unconceals himself a border writer between pastoral and modern; north and south.In these respects the paper argues that the Twainian character of the River in his texts reveals his ‘transmodernity' which overcomes the instrumental reason of modernity and adapt its enlightening reason. The River makes the writer and protagonists experience the undecidablity of nature and observe the contradictory ideology of slavery maintained by the modern state system. It also deterritorializes the modern jurisdictions by floods and always redraws the border. It creates nomadic subjects such as Huck and Jim who are floating on a raft in the River and who are against the grain; civilization and slavery. The River finally anticipates a new community on a raft which is free from civilizing pressure and enslaving violence.