『모비딕』 주인공론의 비평사적 조망과 전망:연결망 공간의 주인공

Abstract

This study primarily examines the trend of discussion concerning the main characters in Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick and explores the logic of criticism inherent in the controversy of setting up the protagonist. While its early reviewers were initially interested in Captain Ahab, the New Critics of the first half of the 20th century emphasized the role of Ishmael. New Historicists have a much reserved appreciation for both characters, and recent notable criticisms focus on the network connecting the two characters and Moby Dick, the white whale. Accordingly, literary study is now facing the question of whether such a relational network can be appointed as a valid protagonist. Among the varied main characters in Moby-Dick, Ahab grasps the logic of natural and socio-cultural networks, and in its accord sets his own passion and mission to persist with them. Even in the intensely networked space, literary potentiality embeds human hopes and desires as well as external realities. In this sense, the literary protagonist, an essential issue of literary studies, acts as a measure of human concerns and engagements in the post-human networked space.