상반된 시각의 조화: 『버킹엄셔에 비치는 빛』

Reconciliation of Two Opposite Views: Light Shining in Buckinghamshire

This paper aims to analyze the two different views, humanist and materialist, as shown in Caryl Churchill's 1976 history play Light Shining in Buckinghamshire. The humanist view, which is often found in bourgeois criticism, rarely goes well with the socialist feminism Churchill upholds. In her play, however, the material hardships facing the characters are depicted in religious and humanist language. In addition, the characters strive to get over material difficulties through their own human values even in a revolutionary situation. On the other hand, the materialist view can be seen in their class conflicts, discrepancy of wealth, and material impoverishment. In her work, Churchill attempts to reconcile these two opposite views as a way to achieve her socialist goal. The humanist approach tends to obstruct any positive change and weaken the revolutionary spirit. Nevertheless, Churchill creates those characters who willingly struggle in their own way without losing their human values. In that respect, she seems to engage the strategy of alternative essentialism, by which she enables us to better understand the past humanistic, materialistic, religious, and societal context from the-then standpoint, not from the current one. By doing so, she offsets the teleological views of history that might result from her intention to connect the two different periods-the present and the past.