ScholarWorks@숙명여자대학교

초록

By combining climate change and Brexit, John Lanchester’s The Wall gives rise to a new form of racism that comes into being through the dismissal of racial matters. Although the world of The Wall is orientalist in nature, Kavanagh's inability to recognize this illustrates the failure of British society to acknowledge its colonial history and its moral responsibilities. This paper examines the White subject's insensitivity and his embedded racism toward climate-induced immigrants, or the Others. It focuses on two distinct but related concepts: the post-racial and White affect. Kavanagh's indifference is symptomatic of the post-racial, or racial neoliberalism, that attributes race and racism strictly to the individual level by dehistoricizing it from the larger social context. The concept of White affect helps to detect the racial issues concealed behind post-raciality. As an affective technology that seeks to manage the White subject’s anxiety by acquiring privileged Whiteness, White affect drives Kavanagh to become part of an elite class while being indifferent to the Others. The end of his isolation on the oil rig is indicative of his regressive desire, which is structured by Kavanagh’s self-fulfilling narrative that proves his hidden hostility toward the Others by racializing them. This undermines the credibility of the entire narrative told from Kavanagh's perspective, which suggests the moral failures of Western society.

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