미스핏에서 의미로: 공간, 경험, 장애의 생성력

초록

This article examines disability representation not as a fixed sign of lack but as a relational event produced through the interaction of body, space, and social norms. Drawing on Rosemarie Garland-Thomson’s concept of fit/misfit, it reconceptualizes misfit as a generative condition in which bodily rhythms and environmental expectations fail to align, producing distinctive epistemic effects. Rather than treating disability as a representational object, the article explores how misfit functions as a conditioned event that organizes affect, cognition, and meaning-making in literary texts. The study analyzes Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Kim Choyeop’s “Spectrum.” Despite generic differences, both texts depict environments where normative sensory frameworks are disrupted, allowing misfit to emerge as a structuring principle. The analysis proceeds across three layers—spatial conditions, experiential trajectories, and generative effects. Haddon’s novel shows how dense sensory norms in urban space produce misfit as cognitive overload, prompting tuning practices such as mapping and diagramming. By contrast, “Spectrum” portrays an environment where human linguistic frameworks collapse, transforming translational failure into awe and relational continuity. Misfit thus generates meaning through two mechanisms: an epistemic lens that reorganizes perception and a translational lens that sustains relations amid irreducible difference. Ultimately, disability appears not as a deficit but as a productive force that reconfigures ontological and relational possibilities in literary imagination.

키워드