침묵과 흉내내기: 워튼의 유령이야기에 나타난 여성언어의 억압

Silence and Mimicry: Repressed Female Language in Wharton"s Ghost Stories

&nbsp;&nbsp;Ghosts, Wharton&quot;s final collection of short fiction, establishes her as a key figure in the tradition of American Gothic stories succeeding Hawthorne, Poe, and James. Wharton uses the old ghost story genre in a new way as a device of exploring the &quot;woman question.&quot; The Gothic becomes the ideal vehicle for Wharton&quot;s perception, that hidden within social structures, are ugly secrets. For her, "the Gothic spirit is the utterance of the unutterable."<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;Among Wharton&quot;s Ghost stories, "The Lady&quot;s Maid&quot;s Bell,""The House of the Dead Hand," "Kerfol," and "Mr. Jones" deal with women who are raped through language and silenced by a cruel husband or father. To ensure male supremacy, Wharton suggests, language must be kept out of the hands of women. Thus, women&quot;s language in patriarchy is oppressed by a form of silence or mimicry without their own language. However, Wharton&quot;s women such as Anne de Corneau, Juliana, Mrs. Brymton, and Cybilla revolt against the oppression executed by male power.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;Wharton&quot;s novels in general show that for women in a patriarchal society the real struggle is between a dependent and an independent self. In her Ghost stories, she portrays the desire of a woman persuing her independent self. To obtain an independent self, a woman&quot;s own language is essential. Wharton criticizes patriarchy which confines a woman&quot;s own language.