유령이여 말하라!: 필립 로스의 인간의 오점 속 유령론과 애도

초록

This essay examines The Human Stain through the theoretical framework of Jacques Derrida’s hauntology, with particular attention to racial passing, spectral identity, mourning and ethical responsibility. The protagonist, Coleman Silk, an African American who lives as a Jewish man, embodies a form of “spectral existence” in which suppressed origins persist and return, destabilizing fixed notions of identity. His controversial use of the word “spooks” operates as a Derridean pharmakon—both poison and remedy—simultaneously concealing and revealing his racial past while precipitating his social downfall. The study situates Coleman’s act of passing within Derrida’s concept of “white mythology,” demonstrating how Western metaphysics constructs whiteness as an invisible norm that erases and marginalizes the Other. In contrast, Faunia Farley represents an alternative mode of spectrality grounded in ethical engagement. Although she conceals her traumatic past, she remains bound to it through an ongoing process of mourning that aligns with Derrida’s notion of “impossible mourning,” which preserves alterity rather than assimilating it into the self. Ultimately, this essay argues that the “stain” in the novel signifies not a moral defect but an ontological condition inherent to human existence. By juxtaposing Coleman’s failed pursuit of singularity with Faunia’s ethical coexistence with loss and alterity, the novel reveals that attempts to erase one’s origins inevitably lead to tragedy while suggesting an ethics grounded in responsibility to the spectral other.

키워드