アルテミオ・クルスとは誰か
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概要
- 論文の詳細を見る
The bearers of culture in Mexico are, in large part, Mestizos: mixed blood descendants of Spanish conquerors and indigenous Indians, whose language is Spanish. Being a Mexican intellectual, then, means being a hybrid. Carlos Fuentes is such a Mexican. Due to his father's diplomatic career, Fuentes spent his youth in many parts of the world. He is bilingual, or better multilingual. The difficulty he has had in defining himself is not hard to imagine. It seems only natural that the major preoccupation of his works should be the quest for self identity. In "The Death of Artemio Cruz" there is no whole, integrated person whose story can be told through one person or in one tense. Fuentes splits his protagonists' consciousness into three parts: past, present and future. Within three divisions, the events of twelve significant days in Cruz's life are told in three narrative voices: I-a first person narration in the present tense: Cruz, a dying man existing in the confines of his death bed; He-a third person narration in the past tense, calling forth crucial moments of his career, moments at which important choices were made; You-a voice which addresses Cruz in the second person, a voice that addresses him in the future tense while referring to events of the past as though they were yet to be determined. Who is Artemio Cruz? He is what he has made of himself by choosing at every crossroad of his life to be "one" at the sacrifice of becoming "the other." During each phase of his life, he is split by the memories and unrealized potentials of the past. He searches for a thread to bind his fragmented self together, to continue the existence of Artemio Cruz. To give himself the appearance of a continuous being, he must keep on desiring. Only by playing out the thread of his desire does he give his being coherence. He refers to the objects of his desire as "one thing or another," but its ultimate purpose is the instant fulfilment of his identity. Along with the existential theme of man's choices and responsibilities, we come across the repeated motif of sacrifice. Cruz not only sacrifices his unrealized potentials but, like an Aztec god, demands the sacrifice of other lives to feed his. Indeed, Fuentes' concept of life and death seems closer to that of ancient Mexico than to that of the Christian tradition. Technically, Fuentes admits, his work is derived from Faulkner and other Anglo-American writers. Faulkner once said, "The writer is completely amoral. He takes whatever he needs, wherever he needs and he does that openly and honestly..." Accepting the fact that he is a hybrid in blood and in mentality, Fuentes has created a uniquely Mexican literature, in which universal themes and vivid local color coexist without contradiction. By writing "The Death of Artemio Cruz" Carlos Fuentes presents his answer to the question of how a Mexican, a hybrid, should live his life. As one of his protagonists says: "...if Mexicans are not to be saved, not one single being in all creation will be saved."
- 東京女子大学の論文
- 1985-09-25