캐서린 앤 포터의 「창백한 말, 창백한 기수」 속 전염병과 전쟁 연구

초록

This essay endeavors to investigate the representation of contagious diseases, specifically the Spanish flu pandemic of the early 20th century, in conjunction with the catastrophic backdrop of war in Katherine Anne Porter's “Pale Horse, Pale Rider.” The Spanish flu pandemic was a global influenza outbreak that occurred during World War I and resulted in an estimated 20 million deaths. Literature and writers of the time were also influenced by this pandemic, although only a few modern writers represented their personal experiences of the pandemic. However, some writers bore witness to and portrayed the social phenomena and existential crises that people experienced as a result of the severity of the disease. This essay focuses on contextualizing these two devastating events, the war and the pandemic of 1918, and utilizes theoretical insights into the human condition and the clinic system for pandemic prevention from scholars such as Michel Foucault, Virginia Woolf, and Susan Sontag. Among the writers who addressed this issue, the essay conducts a thorough analysis of Katherine Anne Porter's “Pale Horse, Pale Rider,” a short fiction work imbued with symbolic and existential descriptions of human beings pushed to the brink of humanity due to the ravages of war and pandemic.

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