An Endless Story with Fragmented Memories

• 발행기관: 한국영미어문학회
• 저자명: Sun-hwa Park
• 간행물 정보: 『영미어문학』영미어문학 제98호, 1~22쪽, 전체 22쪽
• 주제분류: 어문학 > 영어와문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2011.03.30

영문 초록

Doris Lessing's Alfred and Emily (2008) as a biographical fiction can be considered important due to the change in her attitude towards her parents. Considering the conflicts between Lessing and her mother as demonstrated in her writings, it is interesting to see her softened approach towards her mother. In addition, she uses a style of a novella in which she reinvents her mother and father's lives in the scenario that there had been no World War One, because their lives were shattered by the War in reality. She confesses that she wanted to give her parents a new and happy life that they did not enjoy during their real lives. Strangely, Lessing's parents are not married to each other in the imagined world and she erases herself from her parents' imagined story. In Alfred and Emily, Lessing uses some pictures which were used in her autobiography Under My Skin. These pictures are related to her fragmented memories about her family, in particular, her mother. Through repeatedly telling readers about her mother, Lessing demonstrates sympathy towards her mother, and in her old age she attempts to reconcile her feelings towards her mother. Lessing is seen to have suffered trauma from the aftermath of the War just like her unhappy parents, and is ready to understand her mother using the trauma narrative. However, she is still struggling to embrace her mother in that she shows her mother's death in a different way; in the imagined world, she gives her mother a less peaceful death. In other words, Lessing intends to show how difficult it is to accept the past and how dangerous it is to pretend to understand her mother's suffering through writing. Accordingly, her attempt to recover from the loss still continues unresolved.

목차

Ⅰ. Alfred and Emily and Biographical Fiction

Ⅱ. Alfred and Emily: A Novella

Ⅲ. Alfred and Emily: Two Lives and Fragmented Memories

Ⅳ. Trauma Narrative: Mourning Mother's Past

Ⅴ. Healing through Writing an Endless Story

키워드

biographical fiction Alfred and Emily novella fragmented memories trauma narrative empathy