계급과 계급 사이: 『제첩공장에서의 삶』에 나타난 노동과 종교와 예술 = Between Two Classes: Labor, Religion, and Art in Life in the Iron-Mills

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Admittedly the first novelistic expression of American realism, Rebecca Harding Davis`s Life in the Iron-Mills portrays the life of American working class in realistic terms. Davis`s novella examines the gulf between the laborer and the middle class and explores the possible ways to bridge it. The tragic story of Hugh Wolfe, a puddler in an iron mill and a sculptor, exemplifies the failed attempt of a worker to become a middle class artist He accepts the money his cousin Deborah steals from a friend of the mill-owner and is prosecuted for the theft, and finally commits suicide in prison. Not only does he fail to cross the distance between classes, but he is also alienated from his own class since he Idealizes a middle class gentleman and is coopted to his bourgeois values. Nor does he realize the true meaning of his statue which he makes out of korl, a leftover in the process of melting ores. The middle class characters who visit the factory lack the sympathy for the workers and the sincerity to understand them. Hugh`s failure and the visitors` indifference to the other class throw the rift between classes in bold relief. Davis, however, outlines three possible ways to overcome the social reality of the working class. First of all, Deborah`s life serves as an alternative to Hugh`s escapism and individualism. Unlike Hugh who espouses the bourgeois standard of beauty and shuns her deformity, she extends emotional and physical help to him, illustrating the solidarity between laborers. Secondly, a Quaker woman who saves Deborah by accommodating her into her community shows the potentiality of religion as a social practice. In contrast to Christian reformers and bourgeois visitors who advocate (but hypocritically fail to cany out) Christian charity, the Quaker community puts its religious faith into active practice. Finally, art shows the power of articulating the frustration aud desire of the working class. Hugh`s korl womam, the product of industrial waste, fleshes out the surplus desire of laborers with artistic appeal that reaches beyond the class boundary.