著者

小町谷 尚子

出版者

慶應義塾大学日吉紀要刊行委員会

雑誌

慶應義塾大学日吉紀要. 英語英米文学

巻号頁・発行日

no.42, pp.1-17, 2003-03 (Released:2003-00-00)

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An emergent ideology of love in Romeo and Juliet appears to have been central and centrally attacked in the controversy over a defiant daughter in a patriarchal society. Thus, a study of the ways in which Shakespeare deals with an integral part of the family, Juliet and her father, reveals, from one perspective that of how he employs the relationship of the father and the daughter he uses the father's redemption as negotiation of the father-daughter relationship and reconciliation between the feuding families, all of which mirror the social circumstances of the early modern society. From another perspective that of why he questions this kinship bond he employs the relationship among the family for the positive purposes of subversion, thereby again commenting on the social mores of the period. However, Shakespeare does not romanticize or idealize the father-daughter relationship. Rather, in such a relationship he creates a female subject for larger societal issues that inflamed his era. He presents this with those who form a homosocial bond with the heroine to interrogate gender, generational and familial issues, as well as the relationship of the society to the individual. Employing the strategy of Queer Theory, this paper reveals the fiction of forced heterosexual love in a patriarchal society, and then shows that the Nurse is a queer agent who serves as an internal director, manipulating and exerting control over Juliet, ranging frominfluencing the development of Juliet's sexuality to helping her depart from a traditional role as an obedient daughter. Her function and impact seem to be closely related to the qualities she possesses. Thus, the paper's primary focus is upon the role of the Nurse who affects cross-gender relationships for either good or ill.