「필경사 바틀비 : 월가의 이야기」와 「외투」에 나타난 멜랑콜리 비교 연구

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to compare melancholy in “Bartleby, the Scrivener: A story of Wall Street” and “The Overcoat” on the assumption that melancholy needs to be seen as a literary modernity. As a research methodology for this purpose, Benjamin’s concept of interpreting melancholy will be understood in relation to the fundamental emotions that individuals have in their times. I interpreted Bartleby’s behavior as maintaining the attitude of the heroic melancholy who is resisting the process of identification and unification that modern society is planning, enjoying solitude in people through the emotion of depression and boredom. And I explained Akakiy’s humble melancholic character that exploited himself without being the true master of self by abandoning the impulse and clinging to desire by external enforcing. In conclusion, I examined the melancholic elements of literary modernity and insisted that these contained the dialectical character of Benjamin’s melancholy.