作中人物の名前をめぐって : ポーの場合

概要

論文の詳細を見る
Poe sometimes chooses for his characters sets of names that suggest they are closely related and yet often antagonistic to each other, such as Dupin and Minister D- ("The Purloined Letter"), Fortunato and Montresor ("The Cask of Amontillado"), two William Wilsons, and Bedloe and Oldeb ("A Tale of the Ragged Mountains"), though the last set mentioned is exceptionally unantagonistic. The choice betrays Poe's uneasiness about his own identity. He is always haunted by the dissociation of his own personality because he is, just like August Dupin in his stories, conscious of the coexistence in his own self of "creative Poe" who creates esoteric worlds of poetry and mystery, and "resolvent Poe" who destructs the former worlds by means of his own ratiocination. It is suggestive that he uses a very rare word "Bi-part soul" twice, no example of which can be found in The Oxford English Dictionary. My argument is, I believe, supported by the fact that Poe is at once attracted to and repelled by mirrors. Though he allows only one mirror in his ideal room ("The Philosophy of Furniture"), the use of the word "mirror(s)" in his stories count as many as twenty-seven.
昭和女子大学の論文
2004-04-01