애도와 우울 사이에서: 어거스트 윌슨의 『피아노 레슨』에 나타난 가능한 애도와 불가능한 애도 양상

Abstract

With close attention to the dialogue and dispute between mourning and melancholy, this essay examines how the past legacy of African Americans who were not remembered under slavery is described through the aspect of ‘mourning’ in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson. The Piano Lesson, an intriguing meditation on the lasting effects of past racial constraints and events on post-emancipation African-American lives, provides an opportunity to explore how hidden affects move through time and social space through thematic formation and consciousness. I apply Sigmund Freud and Jacques Derrida’s discussion of mourning and depression, and perspective on ghosts, to explain how Wilson reveals the black community’s mourning over loss. Their conception helps us understand how hidden emotions are maintained in The Piano Lesson as a result of, and in resistance to, the ongoing struggle against racial oppression. I show that Wilson’s intention is to reveal the emptiness found in the historical record and the cultural depression and aporia that exist in the collective psyche of black Americans. The mourning ritual presents a systematic and culturally instilled way to recover the loss hidden in the events. Throughout this paper, I show how the African American way of mourning, when combined with the function of writing, offers an alternative way of confronting trauma and loss. Wilson’s play creates cultural space for healing the possible and impossible mourning and the recovery of symbolic loss. In conclusion, I propose to view The Piano Lesson as textual mourning that shows the loss of culturally important events and identity.