"The Hollow Men" Ash-Wednesday : 흔적으로서의 글쓰기 = Writing as the Trace in "The Hollow Men" and Ash-Wednesday

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Eliot himself shows in his poetry that he strenuously wrestles with words to express the inexpressible. For him the universal is imageless and the particular has no language. This is his dilemma which dominates virtually all of his poetry.
Thus, Eliot searches for the Word, that is, the transcendental sign which can express his thoughts and objects accurately and adequately--the transcendental signifier--and which has the unquestionable, absolute, and central, meaning--the transcendental signified. But Derrida argues that 'writing' is the name of structure always already inhabited by the trace. Derrida applies this linguistic concept to thoughts and objects of the world, and develops the concept of 'undecidability,' which he uses to criticize the philosophical assumption of a center or a fixed principle. Thus, Derrida's deconstructive concept of 'writing' makes it impossible to search for the Word. More thorough study, however, shows that Eliot's concept of Word is similar to that of Derrida's 'writing.'
In "The Hollow Men" Eliot's hollow men either whisper together or avoid speech. And when, after the empty wind's whispering and singing, their words end, it is not with a conclusive bang but only with an inarticulate whimper. In Ash-Wednesday, the silent sister "bent her head and signed but spoke no word." World is revealed as not only "unspoken, unheard" but also "inconclusible." Eliot's 'inarticulate whimper' and 'unspoken and unheard' word is similar to the trace, and his 'incnclusible conclusion' to 'undecidability.'
Though Eliot's poetry shows incomplete ending and inarticulateness, the deconstructive concept of 'writing' sheds a new light to the understanding of his poetry. His trial to present the unpresentable imparts a stronger sense to the unpresentable, and the undecidability extends philosophical systems by showing that the secondary can in fact be the primary and that the relationship between them is supplementarity.
Eliot always tried to express the ineffable such as reality, life, or time. But dispersed and divided meanings of a word make the complete representation impossible. But the incompleteness and undecidability of his poetry is resolved one moment and lost the next with each reliving of revealed significance. Thus, he is led to continual writing though words are not accurate and adequate because the only way to express his thoughts and objects is by words.