- 著者
-
森本 真一
- 出版者
- 昭和女子大学
- 雑誌
- 學苑 (ISSN:13480103)
- 巻号頁・発行日
- vol.763, pp.84-94, 2004-04-01
William Faulkner told two different stories alternately in The Wild Palms. In one of them an intern falls in love with a married woman who becomes pregnant and asks him to perform an abortion. After she dies because of the operation, he is determined to serve his fifty-year sentence remembering her. The End of the World and Hard-boiled Wonderland by Murakami Haruki is similar to The Wild Palms structurally and thematically. An engineer in "Hard-boiled Wonderland" has a specific circuit installed in his brain by a scientist. The data is stolen and the engineer's consciousness is about to be extinguished. Then the scientist's granddaughter declares that he will remain in her heart as long as she lives. The protagonist of "The End of the World" lives in a town separated from his shadow. Though he has lost his memory, he is presumably in the situation imagined by the engineer. He plans to escape, but finally lets the shadow go alone, saying that he cannot abandon a world he created. Both Faulkner and Murakami cherish or rely upon the memories of what has vanished. In "The Bear" Faulkner dramatically depicts the wilderness as the hunters' utopia that is being destroyed by civilization. Murakami's "Firefly" deals with a young man's longing for a girl who leaves him after their intercourse. Murakami makes a character of Dance, Dance, Dance warn the narrator to go on dancing without doubting how foolish it is. This may be the author's critical view of mechanized and high-speed society in which people are deprived of profound thinking. Sheep Expert in his Adventuring after a Sheep observes that Japan was destined to be defeated in World War II because there have been no thoughts based on life. Faulkner wrote an essay, "To the Youth of Japan." He mentioned his belief that in Japan out of the disaster and despair after World War II there would appear writers who would speak not a Japanese truth but a universal truth. Murakami is certainly among such writers. Readers should notice his pursuit of human ego in the midst of complicated circumstances.