アメリカ文学のなかの三つの夫殺し (<特集>女性と犯罪)
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概要
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"That was a pretty thing to do,"the white hunter said. "Thou shalt not kill"is the first commandment and murder is the greatest sin of all the deadly sins in the Decalogue. Just the same, human history is crowned with bloody murders committed in passion, and atrocious massacres done in cold blood, in the name of the king, the country, or of love. And we secretly harbour a certain joy in witnessing murder in fiction and in film; or we may even commit one in fantasy if not in actuality. This short essay is an exploration on the theme of "woman and crime" as dramatized in literature. The quotation in the epigraph is taken from one of Hemingway's African stories, "The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber." Whether Macomber's death is a murder or an accident is never made clear in the story, and it is meant so to remain. Yet as the white hunter suggests or threatens the wife, the chances are she did shoot at her husband and killed him. A story of a wife murdering her husband for whatsoever reason quite appeals to any reader of fiction. Indeed, there are a few interesting cases of murder of this particular category in American fiction; Hemingway's Margot killing Francis Macomber is one such case; William Faulkner's Emily Grierson poisoning Homer Barron in "A Rose for Emily"is another example. This time there is a murder, which however is never proved. The criminal is above and beyond the law of (old) southern community where she is confined for life, which in itself is serving a death sentence, as it were. Still another case is Henry James's "Madame de Mauves." The story ends in the death of the prodigal husband to whom the wife is a prisoner in marriage. This essay explores these three deaths of the husbands: first, whether the murder is committed or not; second, if so, why the wives murder the husbands. And it is hoped the discussion will give us a clue to the ideal way of both husband and wife saving their marriage together "till death doth them part."
- 神戸女学院大学の論文
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