기후소설로 본 바바라 킹솔버의 『비상』

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine Barbara Kingsolver’s Flight Behavior focused on the function of literature. Climate fiction(Cli-fi) deals with environmental threats such as climate change or global warming. Cli-fi effectively delivers literary imagination based on scientific facts. In Flight Behavior, Dellarobia Turnbow, who is a main character, is an accidentally early-married young woman. She experiences a process of development through Professor Ovid Byron and Monarch Butterflies. As a Cli-fi, Flight Behavior deals with environmental crisis using Monarch butterflies’ unusual migration to Appalachian Mountains because their habitat in Mexico was destroyed by unprecedented flooding. Dellarobia including readers have learned ‘an entirely new form of panic’ caused by scientific knowledge generated from Dr. Byron and rare butterfly events. As a good listener and beginner assistant to Dr. Byron, Dellarobia finally finds her own inner possibilities and recognizes an impending climate crisis. Like Monarch butterflies, she who is defined as a ‘Perfect Female’ is ready to stand up on her feet and discover her new colony through persistent flight behavior.