著者

本合 陽

出版者

東京女子大学

雑誌

東京女子大学紀要論集 (ISSN:04934350)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.58, no.1, pp.115-138, 2007-09

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This paper argues that asexuality of the protagonists is the crucial element that drives Howard Overing Sturgis's novels, Tim (1891) and Belchamber (1904). The heroes and heroines in the late nineteenth century cannot deviate from the role models that "compulsory heterosexuality" imposes upon them. Sturgis's protagonists do not seemingly belong to the figure. However, they must develop their character under the pressure of the compulsory heterosexuality. Their asexuality does not provide them with other choices, which causes their tragedy. Tim, the protagonist of Tim, is a boy who loves only nature and has just expected that "the tender gracious figure" would come to him. He does not know what he is and has no erotic desire for anybody. However, two triangular relationships drive him to the awareness of gender and sexuality. The relationship with his father and his friend Carol makes him realize that he is not like other boys. The relationship with Carol and his girlfriend Violet reminds him of marriage, which in turn makes him realize that his love for Carol is similar to Jonathan's love for David in the First Book of Samuel: Tim's love for Carol is homoerotic. In other words, the compulsory heterosexuality drives asexual Tim to become a hero who dies when he confesses his homoerotic desire. Sainty, the protagonist of Belchamber, is a boy who loves embroidery. In his triangular relationship with his mother and his younger brother, whom the role of the hero of the story and the heir to Belchamber befits, Sainty becomes aware that he is "effeminate" and "not manly." Accordingly, he starts to take on the role of a mother. However, another triangular relationship with his vicious cousin and a pretty girl forces him to think about marriage with the girl. Also in Belchamber, compulsory heterosexuality dominates the life of the protagonist. Sainty's asexuality deprives him of other choices of living for him. Sturgis's works do not seem to have been properly assessed. According to the discussion on the process that the main characters are forced towards "the heroes," protagonists' asexuality makes the true value of the works invisible.

著者

本合 陽(1958-)

雑誌

東京女子大学紀要論集 (ISSN:04934350)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.60, no.1, pp.47-76, 0000

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This paper argues The Wings of the Dove is a text that conceals homoerotic desire: Milly Theale's romance includes her love for Kate Croy and Kate, who calls Milly a dove, needs Milly's love. It discusses the same expressions used by different characters, the meanings of romance, the replaceability of points of view, and Milly's illness.First, we argue Milly's romance represents her desire for Kate. The replaceability of characters is implied when the same words or phrases are applied to or used by two characters. In the novel Milly is set up as a princess of a romance. Milly always regards Kate as handsome and Merton Densher's gaze that desires Kate is shared with Milly. Milly's gaze parallels Merton's, so the prince of her romance can be Kate. Next, we discuss Kate's love for Milly. Descriptions about Milly's illness overlap with the discourse about homo-sexuality in the late nineteenth century. Accordingly, Milly's illness becomes a metonymy of Milly herself and may represent her identity. Endorsed by Eve Sedgwick's view that Milly's relation to her illness is "an echo precisely of Lionel Croy's homosexual disgrace," we argue that the relation between Kate and Milly has a homoerotic connotation. We conclude that the text involves an indication of Kate's love for Milly in their mutual gazing.The Bostonians is also a story about a triangular relationship among the two female characters, Olive and Verena, and the key male character, Basil. However, it does not depict love between the two females as reciprocal. We finally point out that The Wings of the Dove contains a plot in which love between the two female characters is, in a sense, reciprocal.『鳩の翼』はホモエロティシズムを潜伏させているテキストである。本論は、ミリー・シールを巡るロマンスがミリーのケイト・クロイへの思いを内包し、ミリーを「鳩」と呼ぶケイトはミリーの愛を必要としていることを、複数の登場人物に用いられる同じ表現や、ロマンスの持つ意味、交換可能な視点、ミリーの病などに注目して論じるものである。同じ語、同じ表現を複数の登場人物に当てはめることにより、ある登場人物と他の登場人物との置換可能性が暗示される。作品はミリーをロマンスの王女に仕上げる方向に向かうプロットを持つ。ミリーの視点はケイトを「ハンサム」とみなし、ケイトを欲望するマートン・デンシャーの視点と重なる。以上を踏まえ、ミリーのロマンスはケイトを対象とし、ケイトに対する欲望で成り立つと論じられる。ミリーの病気の描き方は同性愛を巡る19世紀末の言説と重なり、ミリーの病気はミリーという人物の換喩となり、ミリーのアイデンティティを表すことになる。病気とミリーの関わりは「ライオネル・クロイのホモセクシュアルな恥を正確に反映する」というイヴ・セジウィックの説を援用し、ケイトとミリーの関係における同性愛的なニュアンスを考察する。その上で、視線を媒介とする二人の関係が相互の関係であることを指摘し、ケイトのミリーへの愛を論じている。『ボストニアンズ』もオリーヴとヴェリーナという二人の女性登場人物と中心となる男性登場人物バジルの間の三角関係の物語であった。しかし二人の女性の間の愛情が双方向のものとしては描かれなかった。それに対し、『鳩の翼』には、二人の女性の間の愛情が、ある意味で双方向になるプロットが潜んでいることを最後に指摘する。

著者

本合 陽

出版者

東京女子大学

雑誌

東京女子大学紀要論集 (ISSN:04934350)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.54, no.1, pp.81-104, 2003-09-22

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The purpose of this paper is to reevaluate the place of Henry Blake Fuller's Bertram Cope's Year (1919) in the critical appraisal. Analysis of the connection between marriage and the erotic triangle as a literary device in the novel will lead us to the reevaluation. This will then be reinforced by an exploration into the hidden tradition of the device. The device was contrived to express covertly but ingeniously the homoerotic desire that still had to be closeted at the time when Fuller published the novel. In order to prove it, the use of such words as "Sappho" and "Urania" is pointed out first. These words can imply homoerotic nuance in the context of the time. Next, we discuss how the narrator/author reinforces this homoerotic implication by adroitly manipulating the contrasts of three triangular relationships with marriage as a literary means to imbue the relationships with eroticism: a young female's desire to idealize and marry the protagonist in a triangle, accordingly, overlaps with a middle-aged widow's erotic desire for him in another triangle, which, in turn, overlaps with a middle-aged bachelor's homoerotic desire for him in still another triangle. Then, the contrast and analogy between the three triangles and other ones are analyzed to show the homoerotic desire hidden in each male character. The "triangular desire" defined by Rene Girard and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick's theory on homosocial relationship based on Girard's formulation give us the frame to analyze the literary device. However, the function of the triangle in this novel lies neither in the emphasis on rivalry in Girard's triangle nor in the asymmetry of the two sides in a triangle on which Sedgwick insists in her revision of Girard's formulation. It rather lies in the interchangeability or parallelism between the sides of the triangle. The point is that the side between the subject and the object and that between the object and, according to Girard's word, the "mediator" illuminate each other and reveal the hidden desire. In conclusion, Bertram Cope, the protagonist is the mediator who exposes the hidden homoerotic desire of the male characters: this literary device is the author's homoerotic gaze toward the characters and his work. In order to indicate the possibility to trace the hidden tradition, similar connections between marriage and the erotic triangle are briefly discussed in Allan Dale's "A Marriage below Zero" (1889) and Bayard Taylor's "Twin-Love" (1872). Then, finally, it is suggested that Fuller was aware of Henry James's The Bostonians (1886) when he wrote Bertram Cope's Year by pointing out some intertextual evidences, which also suggest the possibility of a homoerotic reading of The Bostonians.

著者

本合 陽 ホンゴウ アキラ Akira HONGO

出版者

東京女子大学

雑誌

東京女子大学紀要論集 (ISSN:04934350)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.60, no.1, pp.47-76, 2009-09

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This paper argues The Wings of the Dove is a text that conceals homoerotic desire: Milly Theale's romance includes her love for Kate Croy and Kate, who calls Milly a dove, needs Milly's love. It discusses the same expressions used by different characters, the meanings of romance, the replaceability of points of view, and Milly's illness.First, we argue Milly's romance represents her desire for Kate. The replaceability of characters is implied when the same words or phrases are applied to or used by two characters. In the novel Milly is set up as a princess of a romance. Milly always regards Kate as handsome and Merton Densher's gaze that desires Kate is shared with Milly. Milly's gaze parallels Merton's, so the prince of her romance can be Kate. Next, we discuss Kate's love for Milly. Descriptions about Milly's illness overlap with the discourse about homo-sexuality in the late nineteenth century. Accordingly, Milly's illness becomes a metonymy of Milly herself and may represent her identity. Endorsed by Eve Sedgwick's view that Milly's relation to her illness is "an echo precisely of Lionel Croy's homosexual disgrace," we argue that the relation between Kate and Milly has a homoerotic connotation. We conclude that the text involves an indication of Kate's love for Milly in their mutual gazing.The Bostonians is also a story about a triangular relationship among the two female characters, Olive and Verena, and the key male character, Basil. However, it does not depict love between the two females as reciprocal. We finally point out that The Wings of the Dove contains a plot in which love between the two female characters is, in a sense, reciprocal.『鳩の翼』はホモエロティシズムを潜伏させているテキストである。本論は、ミリー・シールを巡るロマンスがミリーのケイト・クロイへの思いを内包し、ミリーを「鳩」と呼ぶケイトはミリーの愛を必要としていることを、複数の登場人物に用いられる同じ表現や、ロマンスの持つ意味、交換可能な視点、ミリーの病などに注目して論じるものである。同じ語、同じ表現を複数の登場人物に当てはめることにより、ある登場人物と他の登場人物との置換可能性が暗示される。作品はミリーをロマンスの王女に仕上げる方向に向かうプロットを持つ。ミリーの視点はケイトを「ハンサム」とみなし、ケイトを欲望するマートン・デンシャーの視点と重なる。以上を踏まえ、ミリーのロマンスはケイトを対象とし、ケイトに対する欲望で成り立つと論じられる。ミリーの病気の描き方は同性愛を巡る19世紀末の言説と重なり、ミリーの病気はミリーという人物の換喩となり、ミリーのアイデンティティを表すことになる。病気とミリーの関わりは「ライオネル・クロイのホモセクシュアルな恥を正確に反映する」というイヴ・セジウィックの説を援用し、ケイトとミリーの関係における同性愛的なニュアンスを考察する。その上で、視線を媒介とする二人の関係が相互の関係であることを指摘し、ケイトのミリーへの愛を論じている。『ボストニアンズ』もオリーヴとヴェリーナという二人の女性登場人物と中心となる男性登場人物バジルの間の三角関係の物語であった。しかし二人の女性の間の愛情が双方向のものとしては描かれなかった。それに対し、『鳩の翼』には、二人の女性の間の愛情が、ある意味で双方向になるプロットが潜んでいることを最後に指摘する。

著者

本合 陽

出版者

東京女子大学

雑誌

英米文学評論 (ISSN:04227808)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.49, pp.75-94, 2003