초록

Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick (1868) betrays the economic and social system of nineteenth-century America through a self-reformative bootblack’s quest for respectability. Being considered a space of constant danger, nineteenth-century New York City serves as a game board, and both visitors and residents of the city are supposed to avoid dangers while moving across its space. Dick Hunter, the juvenile protagonist of the novel, illustrates a street-child who starts his game of life from the backline of the game board. Continuing his quest for respectability, not only must he abandon the bad habits that he acquired as a street-child, but he also must avoid thieves and swindlers just like a tourist or like a player of nineteenth-century American board games. As Dick’s social rise goes parallel with his movement in the city space, his entrance to a bank brings him the access to other respectable places, and a series of entrance turns him into a legitimate subject in the official system of the American society. While he continues his game of life successfully with the help of gentlemen patrons, in reality it is almost impossible for a disadvantaged player to escape the backline of the society. Thus, Dick’s success story presents Alger’s fantasy about the ideal economic system in which materials and persons are endlessly circulated.

키워드

Ragged Dick, Horatio Alger, street-child, board game, nineteenth-century guidebooks to city

참고문헌(16)open

  1. [단행본] Alger, Horatio / 2008 / Ragged Dick / A Norton Critical Edition

  2. [학술지] Bartoletti, Susan Campbell / 1999 / The Power of Work and Wages: Working Toward Historicity in Children’s Fiction / Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 24 (3) : 112 ~ 118

  3. [학술지] Deane, Bradley / 2011 / Imperial Boyhood: Piracy and the Play Ethic / Victorian Studies 53 (4) : 689 ~ 714

  4. [학술지] Fluet, Lisa / 2009 / The Unsocial ‘Purfessional’: Revisting Horatio Alger’s Ragged Dick / The Worcester Review 30 (1-2) : 109 ~ 126

  5. [학술지] Guerra, Douglass / 2011 / Forcibly Impressed: Reform Games and the Avatar Figure in Milton Bradley and Walt Whitman / American Literature 83 (1) : 1 ~ 27

  6. [학술지] Hapke, Laura / 1986 / Down There on a Visit: Late-Nineteenth Century Guidebooks to the City / Journal of Popular Culture 20 (2) : 41 ~ 55

  7. [학술지] Hendler, Glenn / 1996 / Pandering in the Public Sphere: Masculinity and the Market in Horatio Alger / American Quarterly 48 (3) : 415 ~ 438

  8. [학술지] Hendrey-Seabrook, Therie / 2004 / Bridging the Chasm between Muteness and Cheek: the Street-Sweeper of the Nineteenth-Century is Granted His Say / New Review of Children’s Literature and Librarianship 10 (1) : 91 ~ 109

  9. [학술지] Makman, Lisa Hermine / 1999 / Child’s Work is Child’s Play: The Value of George MacDonald’s Diamond / Children’s Literature Association Quarterly 24 (3) : 119 ~ 129

  10. [학위논문] Mir, Rebecca / 2012 / Leading the Way: Nineteenth-Century Guidebooks to New York City

  11. [단행본] Moon, Michael / 2008 / Ragged Dick / A Norton Critical Edition

  12. [학술지] Pitofsky, Alex / 1998 / Dreiser’s The Financier and the Horatio Alger Myth / Twentieth Century Literature 44 (3) : 276 ~ 290

  13. [단행본] Riis, Jacob / 2010 / How the Other Half Lives / A Norton Critical Edition

  14. [학술지] Sanchez-Eppler, Karen / 2000 / Playing at Class / ELH 67 (3) : 819 ~ 842

  15. [학술지] Shaheen, Aaron / 2007 / Endless Frontiers and the Emancipation from History: Horatio Alger’s Reconstruction of Place and Time in Ragged Dick / Newsboy 45 (6) : 9 ~ 15

  16. [학술지] Zuckerman, Michael / 2006 / The Nursery Tales of Horatio Alger / Newsboy 43 (6) : 7 ~ 16