함몰의 기표로서의 흉터: 『마 레이니의 검은 엉덩이』의 리비

Scar as a Signifier of Implosion: Levee in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom

This paper attempts to re-read August Wilson's first broadway play, Ma Rainey's Black Bottom (984), by focusing on Levee's scar. Levee has a long, ugly scar on his abdomen. He got the scar when he attempted to protect his mother from white men's sexual assaults. One of the white men whacked him with a knife across his abdomen. Wilson makes us expect Levee's scar to be a signifier of resistance to and eventual subversion of white dominance. The paper argues that this expectation is shattered as soon as it is formed or, to be more specific, as soon as it is encouraged to be held by Wilson. Instead, Levee's scar indicates his failure to overcome the past trauma the scar refers to. Therefore, the paper concludes, Levee's scar reads not as a signifier of resistance or subversion but as a signifier of implosion that points only to Levee's victimization.