『실낙원』에 그려진 이브의 성장과 대화의 교육적 효과

Abstract

John Milton’s Paradise Lost has long been viewed as a paradigmati-cally patriarchal text and as such has been a subject of intense feminist criticism. While the attacks on the apparent misogyny of the poem have been defended by many, the criticism voiced by Wollstonecraft and many other women readers that in Milton’s poetic world, women exist for men, rather than as independent human beings, has not been properly answered. Drawing upon recent discussions of the theatricality of Paradise Lost, this article attempts to suggest ways to read some key problematic moments in Paradise Lost as scenes of drama in which the characters’ words and actions need to be seen as those of characters rather than of the author. In Milton’s text, Eve’s recollection of her birth, for example, is intentionally portrayed as a female gendering process by the voice of patriarchy and is strategically placed to illuminate the genesis of the subordinate Eve whom readers first encounter in Book 4. The fundamental violence involved in that process and the resulting underlying tension, I argue, erupt to the fore in the couple’s morning debates in the “separation scene” in Book 9, leading to Eve’s rebirth as an actor and independent human being. In that scene, non-prescribed dialogue and debates facilitate the vocalization of inchoate ideas and self-discovery, serving as a key threshold in Eve’s education. As such, the scene, I suggest, illustrates the pedagogical criticality of peer interactions in the bildung of independent citizens.