메타비평, 해체, 트랜스텍스트성으로 읽는 노예법

Abstract

This essay reads the slavery laws in the Covenant and Deuteronomic Codes with key words such as polyphony, construction, metacriticism, deconstruction, and transtextuality. We first observed inconsistencies within the slavery law in Exodus 21. The beginning part of the law talks about the possibility of liberation of male slaves and guarantees rights of the slave-wife taken before another one, presenting the slave owner as a generous man. But then the law regulating the owners’ violence against women and men slaves assumes that all slaves are exposed to excessive and regular violence. For us, the coexistence of the slave laws of the Covenant and Deuteronomic Codes in the Pentateuch with more differences than similarities powerfully demonstrates the polyphony of the Bible.<BR> We argued that the slavery laws as disciplinary discourses enculturate values and construct identities. The slavery laws construct class and hierarchy, serving the interest of the rich male slave owner. While the owner is constructed as both generous and violent, the male slave is constructed as one with low self-esteem, having to say that he loves his owner as he chooses to become a permanent slave. The female slave is constructed as lower than the male slave and is sexualized, being subject to her owner sexually.<BR> We observed metacritically how western scholars’ interpretations and commentaries come from their male, middle class, and western backgrounds, and how they remain in the ideologies of the text. Above all, they tend to identify themselves with the slave owner, the subject of the law. Their male-centered interpretations construct the abandoned slave-wife as the body with which they are entitled to sexual pleasure.<BR> We read the slavery laws transtextually with the Hagar-Abraham and the Jacob-Laban narratives. Abraham is described as stingy and passive, unable to protect his slave-wife Hagar and his child Ishmael. Laban is described as a (slave) owner who would not send off his (slave-like) Jacob with gifts. The characterizations of these male figures undermine the male slave-owner who was constructed as both generous and powerful by the slavery laws. Thus we argued that the narratives deconstruct and relativize the laws.