영어로 읽는 고전 _ 신시아 스토클리의 포피_남아프리카 소녀이야기
신시아 스토클리의 《포피: 남아프리카 소녀 이야기》는 20세기 초에 쓰인 소설이다. 이 책은 남아프리카 블룸폰테인에 사는 아홉 살 소녀 포피 데스틴의 삶을 따라간다. 그녀는 레나 이모의 보살핌 아래에서 가난, 육체노동, 정서적 방치라는 가혹한 성장 환경의 시련을 헤쳐 나간다. 이 이야기는 깊이 계층화된 사회를 배경으로 아름다움, 정체성, 회복력이라는 주제를 탐구한다.이야기의 서두에서 포피는 이모의 부엌에서 집안일을 하며 좌절과 분노에 사로잡혀 있다. 마르고 화난 모습으로 묘사된 그녀는 아름다운 숙녀와 용감한 남자가 등장하는 낭만적인 이야기로 가득 찬 행복한 삶을 꿈꾸며 위안을 찾는다. 그러나 꿈과 달리 포피의 현실은 가혹하며, 이는 그녀의 내면 독백과 친척들, 특히 까다로운 이모와의 상호작용에서 드러난다. 육체적 노동을 감당하고 애정에 대한 갈망과 씨름하는 가운데, 이 장은 그녀의 깊은 내면과 억압적인 환경이 만들어낸 정서적 혼란을 확립하며, 소설 전체에 걸쳐 펼쳐질 자아 발견과 회복의 여정을 위한 무대를 마련한다.
Classics Read in English _ Poppy: The Story of a South African Girl by Cynthia Stockley
Cynthia Stockley's Poppy: The Story of a South African Girl tells the story of a child who refuses to be broken.
Poppy Destin is nine years old and already acquainted with hardship. She lives in Bloemfontein under the roof of her Aunt Lena, where love is scarce and labor is endless. Thin, sharp-eyed, and simmering with quiet rage, Poppy scrubs and sweeps while the world outside offers her nothing but indifference.
Yet inside her mind, another life exists. She escapes into daydreams?visions of elegant ladies and brave gentlemen, of romance and adventure far removed from her aunt's dim kitchen. These fantasies are her refuge, the only softness in a life defined by cold commands and calloused hands.
The opening chapter lays bare the distance between what Poppy dreams and what she endures. Her aunt is demanding, her relatives distant, and affection is a currency no one spends on her. But beneath her anger lies something fiercer: a will to survive, to become someone beyond the circumstances of her birth.
Stockley paints a vivid portrait of colonial South Africa's rigid class divisions while anchoring the narrative in the heart of a girl who dares to imagine more. Poppy is a story of resilience?of a spirit that bends under pressure but never quite breaks.
Among the contents
NOTHING more unlike a gladsome poppy of the field was ever seen than Poppy Destin, aged nine, washing a pile of dirty plates at the kitchen table.
Pale as a witch, the only red about her was where she dug her teeth into her lips. Her light lilac-coloured eyes were fierce with anger and disgust. Her hair hung in long black streaks over her shoulders, and her dark hands, thin and bony as bird's claws, were each decorated with a bracelet of greeny-yellowy grease.
There had been curry for dinner. Horrible yellow rings floated on the top of the water in the skottel and Poppy hated to put her hands into it.
She was hating her work more than usual that day because she was hungry as well as angry. She had slapped her little cousin Georgie for throwing a heavy hammer at her which had cut a gash in her leg; and her punishment for this crime had been two stinging boxes on the ear and sentence to go without food all day. Fortunately the incident had occurred after breakfast.
