著者

出原 博明 Hiroaki DEHARA

雑誌

英米評論 = ENGLISH REVIEW (ISSN:09170200)

巻号頁・発行日

no.11, pp.93-120, 1996-12-20

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The purpose of this paper is to make clear the relation and meaning of the countryhouse at Gardencourt to Isabel Archer. Into the story come a number of houses, but only four of them actually concern the heroine; they are the countryhouse at Gardencourt, Isabel's grandmother's house in Albany, and Osmond's lodging places in Florence and Rome respectively. Osmond's houses are much more refined and decorated than the other two. However, they are closed to the world. For instance, his villa in Florence is described as 'having heavy lids but no eyes', and his Palazzo Roccanera in Rome, as 'the house of suffocation.' The American house in Albany is not open to the world, either. The way Isabel lives there is to enclose herself to the corner of a room and devote herself to reading books and reverie, without opening its door which would give access to the outside. Mr. Touchett's estate at Gardencourt is not very closed to the world though it makes much of privacy. It shows no decadence but religious aspiration after Heaven, one of the characteristics of Gothic architecture. It was built under Edward the 6th, of early Tudor style, honoured by the great Elizabeth's overnight stay, bruised in Cromwell's wars, and remodelled in the 18th century. The house may tell a lot about its master. Mr. Touchett is mentally healthy though he is fatally ill. He preserves his identity as an American well, both in his appearances and frame of mind. His estate, with its aestheticism, its honourable history, its religious symbolism of early Tudor style, and without any decoration of vanity, suggests the master's way of life, and that of Ralph, his son, who, cynical, is also mentally healthy in spite of his crucial illness. Mr. Osmond has completely lost his identity as an American and he belongs nowhere. Neither his looks nor his spirit holds any nationality. He is rootless. Osmond's villa in Florence and his Palazzo Roccanera in Rome represent what their master is; he, who is an egotistic aesthete, sensitive and clever, turns his back on the real world and collects curios; he is a snob to a T, full of pretension and vanity. Osmond, who is nearly 20 years older than Isabel, entraps her into marrying him and encloses her in his Palazzo Roccanera as if she were one of his collected curios. When Ralph's illness becomes critical, Isabel returns to Gardencourt to see him, in the teeth of her husband's threats. One of her motives for this is to be reconciled with him, that is, to confess to him that her married life is miserable and that she was wrong in marrying Osmond against Ralph's objection. Another motive to drive her into returning there is her nostalgia for Gardencourt. Psychologically speaking, Gardencourt could be a real home for her. Only this place makes her feel herself most relaxed, and enlivened. This is the place from which she jumps into the abysses of life, and comes back again, exhausted with its hardships. Now she is a grown-up woman, mentally well developed, quite different from that romantic girl who had very little knowledge of real life when she showed herself to us for the first time at Gardencourt several years ago. She likes Gardencourt best of all the houses in the story, feeling a greatest affinity for it. However, Gardencourt is not hers legally, and so it is very difficult for such a self-reliant woman as she to indulge herself with Ralph's kindness and live there for ever. As it is, she has to return to Rome, partly to defend herself against Casper Goodwood, her persevering wooer. Yet, Gardencourt remains in her mind an affinity most comfortable and most soothing. Even Mme Merle, who is Osmond's mistress-conspirator, confesses to Isabel that dear old Gardencourt is the house in which she would have liked best to live.

著者

出原 博明 Hiroaki DEHARA 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

桃山学院大学人間科学 (ISSN:09170227)

巻号頁・発行日

no.22, pp.31-55, 2001-12

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Detachment is particular to Kyoshi's attitude in telling stories. He hardly ever reveals himself. However, this short story has one scene in which he reveals himself. The scene is that of the red camellias. The story is a love story of 75 year old Kyoshi, the narrator, and 21 year old Eiko. At its early stage the story presents the scene of Kyoshi sitting in the garden of his house, watching the red camelliias in full bloom there. Those red flowers begin to dance in the air around him. He feels as if he were surrounded by young women and loses himself in ecstasy. Suggesting something very erotic, this scene could be evidence of 75 year old Kyoshi still keeping the fire of eros burning in him. He falls in love with Eiko when she calls on him for the first time with one of his disciples. Then he takes up a positive attitude. He produces a number of haiku suggestive of his love for her. He even gives the doll named Tsubakiko to her as a present. Let me compare this story with Yasunari Kawabata's novella The Sound of the Mountain, whose theme is also an old man's love for a young woman. Both stories are set in Kamakura, a few years after the end of World War II. Both Kyoshi and Kawabata were citizens of Kamakura. In Kawabata's story, 62 year old Shingo, the narrator, is shocked to discover a truth by means of thorough psychoanalysis of a very strange dream he had. The truth he digs out is that there are eros and sexual desire latent at the bottom of his love for 20 year old Kikuko, his daughter-in-law. He suffers a lot from this morally. He examines himself minutely in view of his conscience, which Kyoshi never does. Shingo is baffled and feels uneasy about his date with Kikuko. He has qualms of conscience, which Kyoshi would never have in the same situation. Kyoshi has a lot more nerve. He is beyond the weakness and susceptibility of the modern Japanese intelligentsia which Shingo represents. Kyoshi is bolder, stronger-minded, primitivistic, rooted in Nature itself, little influenced by modern Western thought. Kyoshi prefers the red camellia above all, which is symbolic of vitality, the fire of life, something primitive. A hundred haiku of his take the red camellia for their motif. In this story Eiko also makes a haiku: "I fear the naked tree among the cherry blossoms at night." The naked tree seems to symbolize something erotic, which attracts and at the same time scares Eiko, a virgin. She doubtless senses Kyoshi's erotic feelings for her. The things I point out above reveal Kyoshi's character. Kyoshi is quite different from Shingo who is a typical modern Japanese intellectual. He is a sort of sphinx in modern Japan. (With his strong will to live, Kyoshi took care of himself and sustained his reputation as one of the greatest haiku-poets until he died at the age of 85, while Kawabata, Nobel prize winner, committed suicide at the age of 73.)

著者

出原 博明 Hiroaki Dehara 桃山学院大学文学部

雑誌

英米評論 = ENGLISH REVIEW (ISSN:09170200)

巻号頁・発行日

no.8, pp.3-35, 1993-12-20

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Hemingway tried to pursue something truly universal in The Old Man And The Sea. Apparently the title is more equivocal, comprehensive, less particularized, than such titles as Santiago and the Sea or Santiago and the Marlin would be. This may be one of the reasons why there have been quite a few interpretations of Santiago as something other than the fisherman he is. For instance, according to Brenner, Santiago as King Oedupus commits incest with la mar as his mother, using the fish as his genital organ, and is punished. On the other hand, Price's interpretation is that Santiago is Hemingway himself as a writer, the fish being his work, and the sharks are critics. In another interpretation, Hogge sees the realization of medieval chivalry in Santiago. The story has also often been taken as an allegory. Hemingway, however, denies his intention of symbolism, saying that the old man (in the work) is the old man, and the fish is the fish. Santiago has been decorated by many critics with such splendid tags as 'superhuman', 'medieval knight', 'King Oedipus', and 'Jesus Chirist'. The purpose of this paper is to take the tags off him for a while and to try to read Santiago as a fisherman pure and simple. To do this, I picked out three refrains in the novella as cues. (As is well known, Hemingway learned the technique of 'refrain' or 'repetition' from Gertrude Stein in his writer's apprenticeship in Paris.) The refrains I have selected are as follows: 'he [Santiago] went too far out', 'I [Santiago] wish I had the boy here', and 'You're my friend but I [Santiago] must kill you, fish'. The old man commits a lot of errors in his pursuit of the fish. First of all, he goes too far out, where he is alone with no sight of land, and of any other fishermen. The marlin he has hooked, when it comes out of the water for the first time, tells Santiago that it is two feet longer than the skiff. That is, it is impossible to take the fish aboard. Then why doesn't he realze that it is bound to be attacked by sharks on his long voyage home? His justifying excuse, 'I must kill you, fish, because I am afisherman', changes into an apology, 'I shouldn't have hooked you. I'm sorry, fish', when he is exposed to the shark's forays. The old man fails more than twice in judging when the fish will come up, so his fight with it actually takes much longer than he expected. He repeatedly wishes the boy were with him during his fight with the fish, and that with the sharks, and he confesses to him, 'I missed you', after he returns home. That is, the old man needs the boy not only as a helper but also as company. The old man, Santiago, is more convincing as a human being than as a superhuman being. He commits a lot of mistakes-as A. Pope says 'To err is human, to forgive, divine.'-, and, alone on the sea, he misses the boy. His being typically human endorses that he is a human fisherman, not a superhuman being, nor a legendary king, nor Christ. It is true that Santiago is not as ordinary as other fishermen. First of all he is more ambitious for honour and applause, and adventurous. With more gifts and faith he makes every effort to be an ideal fisherman, though he is not always successful. He tries to endure till he is on the point of collapse. His sportsmanship is without question here, and meaningful. The old man's manly, stoic attitude toward the tragic result is quite contrary to that of the nameless Cuban fisherman who was crying in the boat when he was picked up, half crazy from the loss of his great marlin, eaten up by sharks. Though the latter's experience was the source of this literary masterpiece, the author apparently idealized his fisherman. However much as he may have idealized Santiago, he did not go so far as to make him anything other than a human fisherman. The old man, Santiago, is undoubtedly no more than human being, but in extreme situations, he fights, as a representative human being with excellent gifts and human defects as well, to the extent of going beyond his limits. And he also accepts the result of his fight with both grace and pride as a man. These are what make Santiago as well as the story itself so charming, moving, and encouraging to us.