怪物の物語/物語という怪物 : Frankensteinにおける怪物性をめぐって
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概要
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The monster in the movie Frankenstein acted by Boris Karloff is so impressive that we cannot clear his visual image from the monster in Frankenstein written by Mary Shelley. However, there is a big difference between them : one cannot speak but only groan, and the other is very intelligent and speaks eloquently. In Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, to view and to speak play a very important role in showing what is monstrosity. This paper's purpose is to examine what is monstrosity in term of visuality and language. Victor Frankenstein calls his creature monster and deserts him because of his abominable appearance. Other people also make the same response to his appearance. This shows that "monstrosity" is based on visuality. In other words, people exclude visual aberrancy from society by the name of monster. Monster's process of learning language shows what it essentially is. Language is a system peculiar to a certain society. Monster wants to learn language in order to make friends with the De Laceys. For him learning language means leaving off his visual monstrosity and entering society as a member of it. The novel has a three-fold narrative structure: Monster's narrative within Victor's within Robert Walton's. Each narrative is motivated by the same design of justifying self. Walton tries to justify his adventure to the North Pole, and Victor tries to justify his creation and behaviour to it. Monster aims to justify his crime by his narrative. Victor's narrative and Monster's are opposed to and criticize each other. Finally, the latter surpasses the former and draws readers' sympathies from it. Even though Monster succeeds in getting our sympathies, his crime -murders of William, Justine and Elizabeth- cannnot be cancelled, which he is aware of. That is why he wants to persuade readers that he is just a victim. It is possible to say that the desire to sway readers causes his monstrosity in a sense. It is not an accident that his desire for telling his story has been intensified since he killed William and became morally monstrous. Language or desire for narrative can be said to be a means of leaving off monstrosity, and at the same time to be quite dangerous with monstrosity.
- 梅花女子大学の論文
- 2002-12-25