＂열등한 자에게 무슨 자유가 있으랴?＂:『실낙원』에 나타난 성과 권력

Abstract

YimThis paper argues that in Paradise Lost sex as power significantly affects the relationship between Adam and Eve and that Milton's justification of God's "Eternal Providence" is in part dependent upon his concept of sexual roles between male and female.Heaven is a sphere where the masculine authority maintains an absolute decree, while feminine rhetoric and relative superiority of language dominate in hell. The two spheres collide in Eden, where both masculinity and femininity take viable forms in Adam and Eve. The sex as gender prefigures their hierarchy; nevertheless the sex as activity disrupts it. The problem arises from the fact that although Eve is clearly the object of sexual desire for Adam, he is not necessarily the same for Eve. In their prelapsarian relationship, Eve maintains the sexual superiority over him. Since Adam's male superiority is unable to prevail over Eve's world of experience, she finds it difficult to accept the given hierarchy. Eve is in conflict.Eve's dream, filled with sexual allusions, is significant in the sense that it provides her with sexual alternatives. Satan's temptation is in essence sexual, and Eve's speech after her transgression signifies that the power lies in sexual superiority. The relationship between Adam and Eve changes after their first sexual intercourse which seems feasible to us. Adam's repulsive reaction thereafter typifies biological characteristics of male, and Eve's admission of male authority places her in a position inferior to his. Does Eve ultimately achieve freedom by giving up her superiority? That's the question.(Sookmyung Women's University)