엘리엇의 시에 나타난 실내 공간, 젠더, 그리고 근대성의 문제들

Questions of Interior, Gender, and Modernity in Eliot's Early Poems

Hong-Seop LeeThis article primarily aims to explore the interrelated significances of interior, late modernity, and gender in Eliot's early poems. As a microcosm of the late modernity, the interiors in Eliot's poetry are re-presented as signifying zones in which the issues of modernity, gender, space are inextricably connected and contested. Namely, in Eliot's poems, such as “Mandarins,” “Portrait of Lady,” “A Game of Chess,” the interiors are problematized not merely as the site of the repression and alienation the late modernity yields but, more importantly, as the gendered site where men and women have significantly different views of others. Whereas men, both the agents and victims of the repressive relationships, objectify women as others and thereby paradoxically undergo self-alienation, women, though ultimately unfruitfully, seek to bridge gaps between self and other, man and woman, and to transform the repressive interiors into the space of intimacy, communion, and love.