著者

佐々木 英哲 Eitetsu Sasaki 桃山学院大学国際教養学部

雑誌

英米評論 = ENGLISH REVIEW (ISSN:09170200)

巻号頁・発行日

no.26, pp.47-71, 2012-03-29

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Sacvan Bercovitch has clarified in The Rites of Assent that American individualismhas had a share in consensus building and contributed to theAmericanization of society. This process is called the American Way. IfChillingworth the cuckold and Dimmesdale the paramour contribute together tothe American Way, why did the author hold an emotional and even a somewhatmorbid attachment to Chillingworth?The author lets the revengeful Chillingworth misuse the nineteenthcenturydomestic ideology that warned of the threat of that nameless horror representedby the bachelor, i.e., homosexual sex. Psychologically, the oldphysician confronts the minister as if he were blaming the latter for committinga deed likely to rouse the homophobic, i.e., forming an immature umbilical relationwith Hester, mother-goddess-like self-willed woman. To prevent the patriarchyhe stands on from backsliding into the pre-Oedipal Eros, and to preventthe basis of patriarchy, i.e., the compulsory heterosexuality, from breaking down,Chillingworth acts as the Law enforcing father. By actually living with the ministerDimmesdale on the pretext of treating his psychosomatic condition,Chillingworth creates the sacrosanct family, insinuates domestic ideology, behaveswithin Dimmesdale's psyche as a sacred father, or punishing super-ego,and thus preys on Dimmesdale with the Oedipal sense of guilt.In his observing eyes, however, Dimmesdale appears to reside in an enviablepatriarchic family-the family composed of the minister, Hester, and Pearl,the family exclusive of outsiders. According to Freud's theory of narcissism,Dimmesdale is, first, the model the physician wants to imitate, second, his opponent/ persecutor, and third, his homosexual lover. Chillingworth's homosexualstance is not, however, in conflict with the American Way, i.e., with the cause ofpreserving the androcentric society, because the heterosexual and the homosexualalike are prone to strive to maintain patriarchy.The author detected the common anxiety shared by the intelligent men ofthe seventeenth century like Chillingworth and the men of power of the nineteenthcentury like Hawthorne: the former were fearful of the antinomians who,like Hester, claimed thorough individualism and direct communication with God,and the latter were cautious against those who were influenced by the effect ofrevolutions in European countries around 1848, and those who imbibed radicalconcepts of freedom, including proto-feminism and the dismantling of the family.Therefore, the author lets Chillingworth protect the patriarchy and its foundationof the heterosexual norm and sexism-in a paradoxical way-by robbing him ofheterosexuality, letting him remain a bachelor, and uniting him homosexuallywith Dimmesdale.