著者

高橋 俊昭

出版者

日本英学史学会

雑誌

英学史研究 (ISSN:03869490)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.1995, no.27, pp.193-207, 1994 (Released:2009-10-07)

参考文献数

26

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After teaching English at the Normal School of Akita for three years, Christopher Carrothers left the town in summer, 1882.The townspeople may have long forgotten him when they found his name in an article of a Tokyo newspaper in September, 1913. The contributor was Kohkichi Odake, an ex-member of the feminist group Seitoh (so named after the Blue Stockings).She reported her recent visit to Akita to the grave of a young girl named Nobuko Tazaki, who had committed suicide when she was disappointed in love for Carrothers, as Odake understood.Another article to refute her understanding appeared in a local newspaper immediately after her report, claiming that Carrothers had murdered his love because he had found her burdensome on leaving the town.The truth about the girl's death was left unknown when Carrothers had left the town for good. Today few people in Akita know of either of them, but the girl's grave, with English inscriptions apparently testifying to Carrothers's commitment to its building, remains where Odake visited it 80 years ago.The report of the visit to the girl's grave made by the feminist Odake arouses our interest in contrasting the two women, who seem to share unconventionality in their ways of life.