조영미.  시장에서의 성, 정숙함 혹은 매춘 - 마스턴의『네델란드 창부』를 중심으로       (YoungMi Cho.  Sexuality in the Market, Women’s Honor or Prostitution : John Marston’s The Dutch Courtesan)

Abstract

John Marston starts The Dutch Courtesan (1605) with the declaration that his play clarifies the difference between the love of a wife and that of a courtesan. Marston’s effort to make such a distinction was a way of negotiating the age’s anxiety over the blurring of such relatively clear boundaries. The beginning of the 17th century in England witnessed an explosive population growth and the advent of a commercial capitalism which helped London grow as the center of Europe. Such unprecedented change instilled the Londoners with a sense of pride in being at the center of the world, as well as with anxiety and fear as to how to tackle such drastic changes which they had never experienced before. The dramatists of the period, including Marston, put such a tension on stage by resorting to the familiar trope of women"s bodies. Among the age’s various ways of controlling women"s sexuality was the condemnation of the female propensity for consumption by equating it with sexual promiscuity, the portrayal of women in shops as sexual commodities for luring male customers, and finally the intense denunciation of prostitution for its breaking of the patriarchal hierarchy and its blurring of the boundaries of legitimate trades, which were thought to be exclusively male-oriented.
  Marston addresses his age’s anxiety by driving his play toward the idealization of Beatrice, a wife, and the demonization of Franceschina, a courtesan. Even though Franceshina distinguishes herself by her mastery of the art required for her career, she becomes the very incarnation of lust itself as the play progresses, and divorces herself from the principles of the market in which she works. Predictably, Beatrice becomes the embodiment of a sense of virtue, modesty, and honesty that is also far removed from reality. Eventually, both heroines of the play turn out to be the projected objects of male fantasies. The main plot of the play is, however, encircled and therefore complemented by the subplot, which shows the domestic life of a London merchant couple. They are the only married couple in the play, and, as a result, serve as a reference for the marriage Freevil imagines with Beatrice. The shop of the Mulligrubs is a place where the practice of a trade is inseparable from homemaking. Furthermore, Mistress Mulligrub implies that she willingly provides more than wine to her customers. Their shop-home is itself the market which Freevil struggles to wall off from his marriage. Despite their snobbish affectations and dullness, they still provide a framework by which we view Freevil"s conception of marriage. Moreover, their significance can be better appreciated in light of the fact that they represent the exact point at which Marston and Shakespeare diverge on the same issue of sexual disorders of the age.
 
  
Key words
  
 존 마스턴, 『네델란드 창부』, 런던, 인구폭발, 시장, 불안, 여성의 성, 성적 무질서, 소비, 매춘, 결혼, 남성들의 판타지, 런던의 가정/상점, John Marston, The Dutch Courtesan, London, explosive populationgrowth, market, anxiety, women’s sexuality, sexual disorder, consumption, prostitution, marriage, male fantasy, London’s shop-home