ある問題(河合忠仁教授追悼号)

概要

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Henry James's "A Problem" was written in 1868 when he was 25 years old. This story is about a couple, Emma and David. During their honeymoon, they are given prophecies by an Indian woman that say the couple will be blessed with a girl, but the girl will become sick and die. Although Emma and David don't believe what the Indian woman says, their girl really becomes sick, and later in her life, she dies. Like in the famous stories such as Oedipus and Macbeth, prophecies become reality because they are made; in other words, humans cannot help making them reality. At the end of the story, the couple has overcome their difficulties, and they "marry twice," which is also a prophecy given them before they meet. This story was written when Henry James was still in his apprenticeship, and one of his stories that explore "private lives and personal relations." It seems that he took advantage of one of those master plots of the narrative world; i.e. a prophecy story.