黄昏のMelvilleに忍び寄るHawthorneの影 : 辞世の書Billy Budd : クィア・リーディングの試み(山川偉也教授退任記念号)
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概要
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This paper discusses two questions : first, how Melville imperceptibly inserted an image of Hawthorne into his novella Billy Budd ; and second, how that rough-hewn image of Hawthorne could be excavated from the text and reworked into the image that Melville created. The petty officer Claggart plays a crucial part in maintaining the patriarchic hierarchy of the Navy's homosocial community. Although Claggart demands that the paternal Captain Vere love all his men impartially, the demand bears no fruit : the Captain loves Billy better than him. Claggart is obsessed with his negative emotion, a mixture of envy and enmity at the pseudo-sibling Billy, and this emotion outdoes his positive emotions of love and admiration for Billy. Billy's image as an innocent, self-sufficient child is twisted and falsified by Claggart into an image that symbolizes non-acceptance, an image of a narcissistic baby who becomes smugly immersed in parental love and prevents anyone from approaching him affectionately. Billy's innocent image conjures up that of Hawthorne, a writer well-known to both modern critics and those of his own era for his handsome, ambiguously-gendered appearance. The paper thus concludes that Claggart's hatred and reproach of Billy for his innocence and beauty reflected Melville's similar resentment toward Hawthorne.
- 2009-03-10