앤 피트리의 『거리』에 나타난 아메리칸 드림의 해체

Abstract

This paper is an attempt to re-evaluate Ann Petrys The Street in light of the recent culturalist readings of the text that read Lutie as a negative character who has internalized the American dream and suggests that the black womens community comprised of Mrs. Hedges and Min should be viewed as an alternative to the hostile white society. The paper argues that contrary to this negative characterization, Lutie does not internalize the American dream and furthermore, is very much aware of the fictionality of the discourse of the American dream. Lutie, who perceives the fictional nature of the American dream embodies the Du Boisian double-consciousness. In this context, Sacvan Bercovitchs assertion that American dream is an ideological construct is much more useful in reading Petrys Street. In fact, the text can be read as a theoretical precedent to Bercovitchs theorization of the critique of the American dream. This paper goes on to demonstrate that through the figure of Junto who symbolizes the oppressive nature of capitalistic democracy in white America, the text deconstructs the American Dream by fundamentally questioning the validity of capitalistic democracy as a workable system for black women in the 1940s. The text suggests that the system of democratic capitalism is deeply flawed by showing the destructive forces brought on by the disfigured character Junto who embodies both white control of capital and the spirit of democracy gone awry. In this way, The Street refuses to be contained but rather subverts the existing order, compellingly contesting Bercovitchs argument that all narrative challenges to the American dream are already and always contained.