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문화 자본으로 몸값 올리기: [오만과 편견]에 나타난 자본 : Raising the Value of Dowry by Cultural Capital: The Capital in Pride and Prejudice

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Authors

이정호

Issue Date
2000
Publisher
서울대학교 인문대학 인문학연구소
Citation
인문논총, Vol.43, pp. 41-67
Abstract
Jane Austen is a great story teller, and the theme of her novels is generally considered to be concerned with the complicated courtship between young women of lower class and men from the affluent class. Readers of her novels, therefore, do not generally expect much except the unravelling of the courtship process. This kind of simplified understanding of her novels, however, is no more than a very superficial interpretation of her novels. The fact that her novels do not very much go beyond the family situations is considerably contrituting to this kind of misunderstanding about the theme of her novels. There is more to her novels than this. Even though Auten mainly describes domestic circumstances in her novels, we should not be fooled into thinking that she is mainly concerned with courtship process in her novels. What I am trying to demonstrate in this essay is that under the seemingly simple and unproblematic descriptions in her novels we could find the complicated and dynamic workings of the capital. We can see this very clearly in her Pride and Prejudice. In order to understand the role of the capital it is very important to know what Pierre Bourdieu means by habitus and cultural capital. Bourdieu defines habitus as "the system of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures." What he means is that habitus is the generating principle of behavior embodied in the unconscious. The habitus, therefore, is the invisible basis of the cultural capital, which Bourdieu maintains is as important as economic capital. Cultural capital can be defined as "the possession of knowledge, accomplishments, formal and informal qualifications by which an individual may gain entry and secure a position in particular social circles." By inheriting the habitus from her father and accumulating cultural capital all by herself, Elizabeth gains acceptance by and eventually marries Darcy. This marriage, however, is not simply a marriage of hearts only. What is important is that Elizabeth has raised the value of her own meager dowry by cultural capital. Her marriage, in this sense, is also the marriage of capitals: the monetary capital of Darcy and the cultural capital of Elizabeth. The marriage as merger of these two different kinds of capitals makes it economically sound and secure for both parties involved and there is plenty of indication that it will be viable on a sound basis in the future.
ISSN
1598-3021
Language
Korean
URI
https://hdl.handle.net/10371/29305
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