‘순수의 시대’에서 ‘불화의 세대’로

Abstract

This study aims to examine the intersection of the transgressive ambivalence of ‘gossip’ and ‘girl’ by focusing on the young adult chick lit Gossip Girl (2002) by Cecily von Ziegesar. In Ziegesar’s novel, which takes the form of a print version of a blog called gossipgirl.net, the anonymous blogger Gossip Girl vividly recounts the gossip of the girls at a wealthy private school in New York City. In form, Gossip Girl, a contemporary young adult chick lit designed for teenagers, straddles the line between literature and cultural product, following in the footsteps of Edith Wharton’s novels of manners, which sharply captured the inner workings of New York high society more than a century ago. In terms of content, Gossip Girl uploads in real time how girls who no longer live in the ‘age of innocence’―a time when scandal was the ruin of women―actively appropriate gossip, consume dissonance, and create new subjectivities. Analyzing Gossip Girl from a postfeminist perspective reveals that gossip and girls are ambivalent., transgressing boundaries. By shedding light on the meaning of gossip/girl in a contemporary context, this study offers a new and timely interpretation of micro-discourse and subjectivity and is expected to contribute to expanding the horizons of youth literature and gender studies.