世界に広がる「アメリカ南部」 : 「近代化」を見つめるマーク・トウェイン(文化)

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概要

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• This paper discusses Twain's first and last travel books, emphasizing a shift in Twain's attitudes toward slavery with the advance of imperialism in the period following Reconstruction and the end of the Old South. In Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii (1975), a collection of newspaper articles reported in 1866, his readers learn about Twain's affinities for "the peculiar institution" implied in his invitations to Louisiana sugar planters to migrate to Hawaii to take advantage of its benefits and escape from the South's turmoil after the Civil War. Three decades after this first travelogue, the publication of Following the Equator in 1897 showed the changes that had taken place in the author's attitudes towards the Old South. After a mature evaluation of his personal experiences in early adolescence, Twain came to take a more balanced and objective perspective on his childhood hometown. This change of heart can be seen in his evaluations of British colonial rule in the countries he visits in his world tour between 1895-6. There, Twain found "the peculiar institution" expanding to the world in the form of "Westernization." Twain treats British colonial rule throughout the world as both positive and negative in its effects, so his final appraisal of it remains contradictory. While he accepts the inevitability and the merits of the spread of Western influence, he simultaneously recognizes their oppressive exploitation of native peoples. Such contradictory attitudes closely resemble his ambivalent visions of the Old South. Though he had grown out of his earlier uncritical sympathy for the Old South, even towards the end of his life, Twain continued to evidence strong nostalgia for his boyhood days in ways that cannot be separated completely from his views on "the peculiar institution." As a witness to transitional periods during which different cultures clashed with each other on both domestic and worldwide scales, Mark Twain found himself repeating habitual motions in the face of his own ambivalence.

• 2005-03-01

著者

• 杉山 直人

  関西学院大学経済学部

関連論文

• 『ミシシッピ川の暮らし』(一八八三) : 近代化とトウェイン(巻下吉夫教授退職記念号)
• 世界に広がる「アメリカ南部」 : 「近代化」を見つめるマーク・トウェイン(文化)
• 解放民問題から「新南部」建設へ : 「再建期」点描
• 『アトランチック・マンスリ』1882-3年掲載 : 「南部紀行」を読む
• ジョージ・ワシントン・ケイブルの旧さと新しさ : 小説から政治論へ
• ウィリアム・アレグザンダー・パーシ『堤防のランタン』 : ボロは着てても心は「貴族」,だが・・・
• 高等遊民のゆくえ : あるいは漱石における「中間」の欠落
• マ-ク・トウェインの「南部」への旅 : ミシシッピ川流域とア-サ-王国(そのII)
• マークトウェインの「南部」への旅 : ミシシッピ川流域とアーサー王国

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