솔 벨로우의 『학생처장의 12월』 - 민족 정체성과 의사소통의 문제

Saul Bellow"s The Dean"s December: Ethnic Identity and the Problem of Communication

&nbsp;&nbsp;This paper will cover the problems of communication that Albert Corde has as Saul Bellow&quot;s accomplice in three major spheres: the political wall between the East of Bucharest and the West of Chicago; communicative transformations among intimate relations; and the problematic situation of the signifying practice as a journalist. Since Bellow has been awarded the Nobel Prize in 1976, his next novel, The Dean&quot;s December , did not appear until 1982. In it he is wrestling with his major preoccupation: What is it that enables us to communicate, to transmit our hearts? This novel shows Bellow&quot;s incapability of communicative transformation through an appropriate form of language. The protagonist, Albert Corde, feels compelled to transcend the limitations of his existence by overcoming miscommunication among human beings.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;On the level of individual communication, the conversations of intimates, genuine communication seems to be extremely difficult for Albert, even though he is a widely-known journalist. The question of communication between Albert and Minna, husband and wife, receives the most persistent and complex treatment throughout The Dean&quot;s December . Because she came from Eastern Europe she not only experiences a language barrier in the U.S. but is also culturally marginal. Albert and Minna are at opposite extremes of culture and language. This could easily reflect a similar impasse between Bellow, the writer and Alexandra, the mathmatician who knew nothing about literature. However, the novel ends that husband and wife begin to communicate again after her mother&quot;s death, Minna recovers from her own illness, and she turns to her husband for help.<BR>&nbsp;&nbsp;Bellow questions the validity of a merely journalistic objective account and suggests that truth can be discovered only when a serious artist applies his powerful imagination to real experiences. In order to represent his incapability of communicative transformation, Bellow created the iron curtain, where Albert Corde was situated, is not to enough show his true self. And Bellow tried to let Corde transcend world of journalism toward that of art that could possibly convey truth to human heart.