earticle

영어

This paper examines how linguistic vulnerability fosters ethical hospitality in Six Degrees of Separation (1990) by John Guare. The play portrays acts of hospitality extended to “unrealized” others, embodying an unattainable ideal. At the same time, it dramatizes an ambiguous “in-between” space where boundaries dissolve, facilitating interdependence through shared human vulnerability. Rather than seeking completeness, the characters come to acknowledge their common vulnerability, bodily finitude, and existence within collective precarity. Although the protagonist, Paul speaks from the marginalized position of a vagrant, the play reconfigures his utterances as acts of agency, illustrating the transformative power of linguistic vulnerability. This paper explores how linguistic vulnerability generates unconditional hospitality, enables “unchosen cohabitation,” and dismantles ethical boundaries. Drawing on Judith Butler's ethics of alterity and politics of precarity, this study argues that encounters with vulnerable others necessitate relational engagement and compel self-recognition, which, in turn, position others as essential to the formation of ethical subjectivity.