Aaron's Oscillation between Singleness and Commitment in Aaron's Rod

• 영문명: Aaron's Oscillation between Singleness and Commitment in Aaron's Rod
• 발행기관: 한국영미어문학회
• 저자명: 강진호(Jin-Ho Kang)
• 간행물 정보: 『영미어문학』영미어문학(TAEGU REVIEW) 제76호, 57~84쪽, 전체 28쪽
• 주제분류: 어문학 > 영어와문학
• 파일형태: PDF
• 발행일자: 2005.09.01

영문 초록

Aaron, as a vagrant bohemian hero in Aaron's Rod, comes to oscillate more and more between his own singleness and commitment to Lilly, even though he has already turned his back on the demanding wife and all the suffocating bondage to the conventional social life in order to look for a true selfhood. From early on, the hard core of resistance in himself against exhausting surroundings has kept pushing Aaron to follow his own deepest invisible desire for independence. The encounter with Lilly lets Aaron outline his implicit desire more visibly and reinforces his desire to quest for independence. With Lilly's call upon his soul, Aaron is prodded to stand upon his own singleness and take the responsibility of a new self in himself, free from woman's menacing will. However, Lilly's advocacy of a single individual soul does not preclude the commitment of one's soul to a more heroic soul because his belief in a new mode of life, namely, the power-urge, commands the sticking to one's own self and one's free submission to the greater soul as well. Against the false ideals of modern society like Christian love and democratic equality, Lilly suggests as an alternative the healthy submission. Under Lilly's influence Aaron also moves to admit the necessity of choosing Lilly's guidance over worldly standards and Lilly's dominion over himself. But, even at this moment, Aaron's oscillation between singleness and commitment does not stop with the definite determination of the yielding of his independence to Lilly's superiority. It still remains open whether Aaron will take a stand to choose one over the other. In Aaron's Rod, Lawrence, it seems to me, does not try to end the tension with a provisional conclusion, but rather implies that singleness and commitment are not exclusive of each other. The two are complementary and coextensive in nature in order to attain a new mode of life and a true self. So the trembling movement between the two is inevitable in the development of the true selfhood.