著者

中村 祥子 Shoko Nakamura 桃山学院大学文学部

出版者

桃山学院大学総合研究所

雑誌

英米評論 (ISSN:09170200)

巻号頁・発行日

no.19, pp.133-163, 2005-02

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The short story, "The Doom of the Griffiths" was written by Elizabeth Gaskell in 1857, more than one year after her former fictional creation, "The Poor Clare". The story presents a conflict between two types of landlords ; a landlord who may prosper and one who may not. This is the author's first treatment of an issue that becomes a major theme in her later works. "The Doom of the Griffiths" is a tale about the fall of the Griffiths family, people of the landlord class. At the beginning of the story is an explanation of why the Griffiths were doomed to fall. When Owen Glendower, a Welsh hero in the Middle Ages, rebelled against Henry IV, an ancestor of the Griffiths named Rhys ap Gryfydd betrayed Owen, who believed in him. It means that Rhys ap Gryfydd was shrewd, and that he tried to side with those most likely to be victorious. In great anger, Owen, who was said to be able to use magic, cursed the traitor and his descendants. As a result, members of the Griffiths family were doomed by Owen to fail and disappear after nine generations. Owen prophesied that at that time a son should slay his father, the ninth Griffiths. After this brief explanation the main plot begins. Two generations are described ; the ninth named Robert Griffiths and his son, Owen Griffiths. They are father and son, but are quite different in manners. Robert is the second son and inherits the estate of the Griffiths as a result of his elder brother's death. He is gifted and able to create his own future. On the other hand, Owen is the only son who is an heir to the estate from the moment of his birth. He has no choice but to succeed his father. Therefore, he is passive and does not try to take a step forward, even though he becomes under the necessity of earning a living. Their attitudes toward marriage also differ. The father gets married to a rich attorney's daughter after he inherited his family's estate. And after his first wife, who is Owen's mother, died, he marrys again a beautiful young widow with a little boy named Robert, who, coincidentally, has his stepfather's name. The son, on the other hand, secretly gets married to the beautiful daughter of a man who works as a half farmer and half fisherman. The girl's name is Nest. They have a baby named Owen. Because the young couple cannot make a living, the wife and their baby live with her father in his cottage. Owen frequently and surreptitiously comes to the house from his father's manor house. The wife's father, who is a tenant of the Griffiths estate, endures this irregular situation, believing that his daughter will be Lady Griffiths in the future. Robert's new wife schemes to drive Owen out of the mansion and make her child Robert inherit the family's estate. As a result of her scheming, her husband becomes estranged from his son and begins to favor his stepson. One day she tries to irreparably break the relationship between Robert and his biological son to make sure of her biological son's inheritance, and she exposes Owen's secret marriage to her husband, lying and insinuating that Nest is a prostitute. The angry father goes to his son's secret home to require him to separate from his wife, and snatches the little Owen from Owen's arms to throw the baby back at Nest. As a result, the baby falls to the floor and dies. At last, Owen decides to leave his father's mansion for ever to live with his wife in a big city, earning his bread. It is, however, too late. After some troubles, the father moves into action. He and his son are placed in a situation in which they struggle on the edge of a precipice. A push of the son to escape from the father's grip causes the father to fall off the cliff, to hit his head against the edge of a boat, and to die. Though it seems that this is a fulfillment of the prophecy, the author denies the supernatural element, emphasizing that the father's death is accidental. As a squire, Robert, a person who is shrewd and selfish like his ancestor Rhys ap Gryfydd, prospers, but he is also very cruel, while Owen, a passive liberal, is disqualified as a landlord. Through the story, the author is critical of the father. The last of the story deals with Owen, his wife, and her father, who should leave the country before the dead body of the squire is found. They venture out on a stormy sea to disappear into the night. The author partly suggests that the three are shipwrecked and die. She, however, leaves room for another interpretation. The three might safely arrive in Liverpool, where Owen could "gain a livelihood by his own exertions." The author accepts Owen's way of living when he leaves the status of a landlord. That is the reason that Owen is the younger of the two central characters. It is important that the name of the second son Roger in Wives and Daughters, who is Robert's successor, has the initial "R", and that of the elder son Osborne in the same novel, who is Owen's successor, has also the initial "O". It means that "The Doom of the Griffiths" developed into Wives and Daughters.