ナショナリティとセクシュアリティ : Patrick White Twyborn Affair (1979)を例に
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概要
- 論文の詳細を見る
In Patrick White's Twvborn Affair(1979), we confront one of recurrent themes of Australian Literature, in association with another theme which is comparatively unusual. The former, the theme of national identity, is amalgamated with the latter,the theme of sexual identity, to make a story of a wandering life in which the hero/heroine Eddie Twyborn seeks for his "true" self while not knowing whether it exists or not. When the story is set in Europe, Eddie appears in the persona of a woman, firstly young Eudoxia and later Mrs Eadith Triste. In Australia, he assumes the role of a man, the only son of Judge Edward Twyborn. One may possibly interpret Eddie's alter-nation between the sexes as a metaphor: manhood as the symbol of the Australian ethos, womanhood as that of the Old World. The problem of sexuality, however, plays a far more substantial part in the novel than mere metaphor. As an expatriate and a hermaphrodite, Eddie is doubly excluded from definite social groups. On that account, he inevitably aspires to "the reality of permanence", a state unrecognizable to the eyes of people with unfailing identities. Though the pursuit of ambiguity both in national and sexual identity, the novel presents a positive vision in spite of its negative rendering and tragic ending. Eddie seeks for truth in his troubled identity. He can belong neither to his motherland Australia nor his cultural back-ground Europe, nor can he ever perfectly belong either to the state of manhood or womanhood; and truth for him lies in surviving by means of this untenable position itself. We understand Eddie Twyborn's fluctuating anonymity as exemplifying a prolific multiplicity of identities to be seen during the course of Australian literary history in which the problem of identity has been subjected to.a variety of experimental trials.
- オーストラリア学会の論文
- 1991-12-25