美の崩壊と「共感の通路」の喪失 : 'The Withered Arm'

概要

論文の詳細を見る
The Withered Arm' in Wessex Tales is considered to have something in common with 'Barbara of the House of Grebe' in A Group of Noble Dames ; its theme is concerned more with the relation between man and woman in terms of personal beauty than the supernatural and grotesque aspects. Rhoda Brook, who once had relation with Farmer Lodge and has a boy of eleven years old, shows a keen jealousy towards Gertlude, Lodge's new bride. Rhoda's strong photographic imagination appears to cause a weird withering of Gertrude's arm. This disfigurement leads Gertlude, who is educated and tends to regard superstition as silly enough, to believe in superstition and to resort to a magical treatment of her withered arm. Gertlude's change is caused by her withered arm, because she desperately hankers for love of her husband who thinks so much of her personal appearance. The personal appearance is in a sense a linkage between man and woman: 'evanescent' beauty of young Gertlude's appearance also seems to imply the 'evanescence' of the relation between man and woman. This aspect is much concerned with the atmosphere of fin de siecle of this tale. In this paper Thomas Hardy's 'The Withered Arm' in Wessex Tales is analyzed from the viewpoint of the relation between man and woman based upon the personal appearance, considering the supernatural and grotesque aspects poised in the atmosphere of fin de siecle.