여성-되기와 중동태: 앨리스 워커의『컬러 퍼플』에 나타난 과정적 주체성

초록

This study reinterprets Alice Walker’s The Color Purple through the theoretical concept of the middle voice and Gilles Deleuze’s theory of becoming, emphasizing process subjectivity rather than static agency. Traditional readings cast Celie’s transformation within active/passive binaries—her shift from object to speaking subject via epistolary self-address, and Shug Avery’s role as transitional catalyst—framed by feminist, psychoanalytic, and racial theories. By contrast, Benveniste’s middle voice reveals Celie as both actor and recipient of her own speech acts, producing selfhood through reflexive language. Deleuze’s “becoming-woman” highlights how Celie and Shug co-constitute new assemblages of desire, deterritorializing gendered norms and enacting desiring-production. Celie’s epistolary practice evolves from one-sided confession to dialogic address, evidencing a shift from solitary self-constitution to relational subjectivity. Shug’s arrival triggers Celie’s affective and bodily reorientation, enabling economic and emotional autonomy. Their reciprocal transformation exemplifies desiring-machines forging novel lines of flight and plural singularities. Ultimately, Walker’s novel emerges as a dynamic text in which Black women’s subjectivities are continuously formed through language, relationships, and desire. This analysis not only reframes Celie and Shug’s journeys as interdependent processes of middle-voiced becoming but also offers a theoretical bridge connecting Black women’s literary voices with contemporary subject-formation theories.

키워드