사막의 전해지지 않은 이야기: 메리 오스틴의 『비가 적은 땅』

Abstract

Mary Austin is regarded as the first writer who mapped the western desert of America as an ecocultural region. She explored and celebrated the desert when it was considered to be a desolate and hostile place. However, her main work, The Land of Little Rain, which consists of 14 sketches about the wilderness, and animals, plants and cultures of Native American and Hispanic people who lived there, roused a new awareness of an arid place where all its members live in harmony with the demanding environment of the desert. For Austin, the desert is not just a vast space which is silent and barren. Rather, she values all life in the desert and attempts to indicate that each member consists of and constitutes the process and flux of energy, which anticipates our contemporary ecological vision. Therefore, the wilderness of desert comes to Austin as a site of inspiration and creativity. Although the desert is blamed for its lack of culture or civilization, Austin finds an alternative culture in Native and Hispanic communities which already resolved the conflict between civilization and nature. Native American and Hispanic figures appear as a model of endurance, self-sufficiency, and graceful adaptation to their severe environment, which, Austin believes, will reinvigorate American culture which has become stereotyped. After keen and patient observations, Austin comes to know that the desert and all its members are fulfilling their lives with their own stories. She tries to tell us about the stories which have been neglected and mispresented for a long time.