크리스토퍼의 접촉공포증

• 영문명: Christopher’s Phobia of Touches: A Curable Disease Represented in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
• 발행기관: 한국영미문학교육학회
• 저자명: 이주리(Joori Lee)
• 간행물 정보: 『영미문학교육』영미문학교육 제25집 1호, 33~58쪽, 전체 26쪽
• 주제분류: 어문학 > 영어와문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2021.04.30

영문 초록

Christopher Boone, the first-person narrator of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003), displays a curious symptom, phobia of bodily touches in every human relationship. Most existing studies have viewed Christopher’s phobia of touches as a typical symptom exhibited by autistic people, but this paper argues that Christopher’s symptom is engaged to expose a ubiquitous social phenomenon shared by a host of people in fiction and reality. Conceptualizing Christopher’s phobia of touches as not an individual problem belonging to a small group of people who are ostensibly disabled, but as a universal phenomenon that is caused and fostered in a particular sociocultural setting, this paper recognizes a range of sociocultural domains as responsible for development of the illness. Christopher can be viewed as a wounded individual who acquires this pathological symptom while living in a traumatic social setting rooted in the ideology of being normal. Within society, the protagonist is affected by social emotions such as shame, disgust, and fear of potential contagion, and consequently, develops a phobia of touches. This paper also notes that traumatic relationships, which involve unpleasant types of touches, may be a crucial factor causing the character’s rejection of touches. What should be emphasized is that Christopher’s phobia of touches could resolve through ongoing effort and support from surrounding social community, since it is a socially acquired illness, rather than a biological condition resulting from a neurological difference. Calling for readers’ attention to Christopher’s illness represented in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, the present discussion encourages contemplation regarding how to rescue the character from the autistic world where he is increasingly distanced from human touches, and trapped in an oppressive silence without mutual connections with others.

키워드

『한밤중에 개에게 일어난 의문의 사건』 접촉공포증 장애 자폐증 트라우마 사회적 돌봄 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time phobia of touch disability autism trauma social care