말하는 주체의 고통: 사무엘 베케트의 『이름 붙일 수 없는 것』과 윤리적 폭력

Abstract

The double bind that captures the narrator in Samuel Beckett’s The Unnamable is neither “undecidability” nor “indecision” but a kind of overdetermination. It is not the existential aporia that the subject faces but the contradictory and violent conditions inherent in the social and ethical subjectivation itself. In the theories on subjectivation examined by Judith Butler, the double bind is posited as the fundamental condition of the discursive formation of subject. Both Alain Badiou who attempted an ethical reading on Beckett and Shane Weller who took a critical view against Badiou disregarded the conditions that saying is made possible only by being said, that subjectivation is a process of subjection, and that such subjection is imposed with punishment and pain. The Unnamable explores the violent structure of subjection itself rather than offer an allegory of an ethical subject. In order to explore the latent ethical meaning of Beckett’s literature, it is crucial to mark The Unnamable as a departure point. The thesis examines the limitations and possibilities of ethical reading on Beckett through an analysis of the paradoxical conditions and pain involved in subjection fully displayed in The Unnamable. (Hong Ik University)