정원과 사막: 프랑스인들이 그린 미국의 문화 지도

Abstract

This essay aims to genealogically map the historical changes of cultural landscapes drawn (written) by French writers from the early America to postmodern America. The essay first of all critically reviews J. Hector St. John de Crevecoeur’ Letters from an American Farmer in which Crevecoeur, who delineates in the book how he became an American cultivating a small farm after emigration from France before American independence. He regarded America as a God’s garden where Americans as new men created a pastoral utopia; yet, he also depicted dark side of American life upbraiding for massacre of American Indians and condemning slavery even though his perspectives were European-centered. In turn, the essay takes on Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America in which Tocqueville, though praising America as a model of democracy founded on equality, also critiques inhumane treatment of the American slavery system and institutional violence of the majority over the social minorities. Extending the scope of research into modern America, the essay analyzes Simone de Beauvoir’s America Day by Day, a travelogue where Beauvoir, though praising American culture and economic affluence, accurately described modern America where highly developed society was saturated by parochialism, racism, anti-intellectualism, etc. In the final analysis, the essay unfolds how Jean Baudrillard poetically and prophetically analyzed American postmodern culture definding America a desert overwhelmed by simulation and hyperreality.