アメリカ学会会報--The American Studies Nesletter-- July 2004
書評者 杉山直子氏 (埼玉大学)
本書は、アメリカ小説のなかで、とくに著者が「思春期小説」と名づけた「思春期の若者が近代社会の諸制度と格闘しながら成長するさまを描く作品」を論じたものである。まず著者は、アメリカ文化の典型的な男性像である無垢な孤高のヒーロー「アメリカのアダム」をふまえつつ、アメリカで理想とされるのは地位や権威を持ち、女性(および女性的なもの)を支配する独立独歩型の男性であり、経済的、社会的変化や戦争といった合衆国の大きな変動の中で、この「理想の男性像」の達成がますます困難となり、「自分の男らしさは十分ではない」という不安を男性の中に呼び起こしてきた、と論じる。『トム・ソーヤーの冒険』『ハックルベリー・フィンの冒険』を例にとって、以上の論点が分かりやすく整理された序論は、説得力もあり読み応え十分である。
続けての各章で、著者はそれぞれの時代に男性が直面する「男らしさ」不安がどのように表象されているのか、『オズの魔法使い』『類人猿ターザン』「ゲド戦記」などのテクストについて論じていく。
本書は、まず文学批評で見落とされがちなヤング・アダルト小説の案内、批評として貴重である。それぞれの章が独立した批評として読めるが、思春期にある男性主人公と、「男らしさ」不安との葛藤、というテーマで全体が統一され、フェミニスト批評の蓄積を踏まえた洞察が随所にみられる。『オズの魔法使い』を、ドロシーを中心に読むのではなく、かかし、ライオン、ブリキの樵、オズの魔法使い、という四人(?)の「男らしさ」不安と回復の物語として解読する第2章、および、力が支配する殺伐とした私立男子校を舞台とするロバート・コーミアの『チョコレート・ウォー』を、『ライ麦畑でつかまえて』との比較もふくめて論じた第4章は、評者にはとりわけ興味深かった。
あえて難を言えば、著者が、思春期の男性主人公(たとえば『ライ麦畑』のホールデン・コーフィールド)の不安や権威への反発を「男らしさ」神話が原因であると断定し、その断定の理由について説明がない所があるのがやや残念である。また、フェミニスト作家であるアーシュラ・ル・グウィンの「ゲド戦記」を、ジェンダーの図式で読み解くのはある意味、作者の意図にそった読み方であり、いささか素直すぎる気がするし、ル・グウィンの、よりジェンダー・コンシャスなエッセイやSF小説『闇の左手』などにも言及がほしいところ。キャサリン・パターソンの『もう一つの家族』を論じた第7章も、同じく作品の提示する図式に素直すぎるように思えた。英語もおぼつかないヴェトナム人少女の差し出す水を受けとることがきっかけとなって、主人公の少年が、戦争の英雄と思われていた祖父や父への失望をのりこえ、ヴェトナム女性と結婚しておだやかに暮らす叔父の生き方を認めていく、というストーリー展開は、他者による主体の獲得および新たな男性性モデルの登場、と評価できなくもないが、むしろ従来白人女性の担ってきた「男を癒す大地の母」役割を、ヴェトナム女性に肩代わりさせただけ、というようにも読めないだろうか。
とはいえ日本ではあまり論じられることがないコーミア、パターソン、ウォルター・ディーン・マイヤーズらの現代作家について論じた先駆性および、批評としての完成度を高く評価したい。また本書を契機にこれらの作家たちの研究、翻訳がさらに進むことを期待したい。
IRSCL BOOK REVIEW
Shonentachi no America : Shishunki Bungaku no Teikoku to 'Otoko'
(Boys' America: The Empire and Masculinities in Adolescent Literature)
by Junko Yoshida
Kyoto, Japan: Aunsha, 2004
Review by Ariko Kawabata, Aichi Prefectural University, Japan
This is the first book which illustrates the historical changes and the cultural significance of American adolescent literature, focusing on the construction of masculine identities of boy-heroes. It covers almost 100 years from the end of the nineteenth to contemporary times, exploring how adolescent literature has served to construct American masculine identity, and indoctrinated ideologies of American Empire such as Isolationism, Globalism and Americanism into the minds of American boys. However, adolescent literature includes some counter-narratives, which challenge and protest against the established norms and we can find a considerable number of boy heroes who resist being incorporated into the dominant ideologies. Quoting Althusser, the author identifies adolescent literature as one of the AIE (Appareils Ideologiques d'Etat). As such, it has educated and socialized boys into becoming societally desirable American men. However, underneath the main narratives, some hidden subtexts continue to run, which disclose anxieties, fears, identity-crisis, and finally, disruption of the traditional American Masculine ideal. The author shows us the dynamics of these contesting currents within which boy-heroes live and grow up, and we can notice one clear trajectory of American social history through the analysis of the texts.
It is also important that this book explores the history of silenced Others in terms of ethnic, gender, and class, as well as that of white American Men. In this sense, the first chapter on The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) is interesting, for the author's interpretation shows us a double twist. We usually tend to read the story as Dorothy's quest for self-identity but here the author dislocates the main plot and focuses on the men around Dorothy: the Scarecrow, the Woodcutter, the Lion and the Wizard of Oz. These male characters embody, according to the author, vague fears and anxieties of American masculine identity. Although at that time, the United States was driving its way to establish itself as a powerful WASP Empire expunging the Others under the flag of "the Manifest Destiny", those fears and anxieties were already lurking beneath. The uneasy men of Oz are waiting for restoration and redemption at the hand of an innocent and hopeful girl. Seen from the socio-historical context, Dorothy's femininity is exploited and she is reduced to being the Other, rather than a protagonist, and her role in this male narrative is only to help restore the identity of American masculinity.
Thus, Oz is analyzed as men's narrative rather than a girl's, and the American masculine identity continued to form itself while marginalizing its Others. The author points out that a typical example of such American masculine identity is found in Tarzan of the Apes (1914). With his noble savagery, Tarzan exemplifies the ideal American man, domesticating wilderness as well as the feminine Others.
Although Tarzan's masculinity was stable and secure, during the 1940s to 1950s, gradually "fear, irony and paradox" concerning American masculinity surfaced in narratives of boys' identity exploration. The author chooses to discuss A Separate Peace (1959), in which the establishment of male identity involves the expunging of and contesting with not only Others outside himself but also with those inside himself. These dangerous Others lurking inside one's self found its correlative in contemporary American society, for example, in Communists. The United States could no longer ignore the existence of Others, which it had discarded, ignored and buried, for those Others were in fact the Shadow of the Self. Thus, Ged had to find, recognize, and fight with his Shadow self in A Wizard of Earthsea (1968). What is important here is that he does not conquer, but unites himself with the Shadow, the darker half of himself.
The author continues to discuss The Chocolate War (1974), The Earthsea Quintet (1968-2001), I am the Cheese (1977), and Park's Quest (1989) in the following chapters, which clearly demonstrate how American Masculine identity, which once set to establish itself as a pure WASP maleness, tries to reconcile itself with the feminine and the ethnic Others. Its struggling processes, in which the single manly ideal absorbs attributes of the Others and changes itself into plural masculinities, are inscribed in these texts. It is not an accident that some of these stories share the Holy Grail myth as a motif, for, as the author suggests, the recovery of the Holy Grail and the healing of the Wounded King require the hero's reconciliation with the Feminine.
The author locates Park's Quest, the most explicit revision of the Holy Grail Quest as a new establishment of American masculinity, which is healed of its wounds inflicted by the Vietnamese War. She argues that the injured masculinity is restored here by the act of Park's reconciliation with an Asian Woman, the ethnic and the gender Other. We cannot help thinking how far American masculinity has come, from Frank Baum's Oz to Catherine Paterson's quest. At the same time, however, I am inclined to doubt just how far, and how many differences can there be between the role of Dorothy and that of Vietnamese Thanh.
The last complete analysis in this book is of Fallen Angels (1988), in which the main protagonist who sets out to seek for his self-identity is a poor black boy, Richie. With the former ethnic Other being a main character, the traditional American male narrative is here deconstructed. The author insists that the new masculine identity of Richie is performatively achieved by absorbing those "feminine" attributes such as nurturance, comfort, and interdependence. It is hoped that this new self finally conquers the old sterile masculine system to make a better world.
As the author herself recognizes in the afterword, however, the old American masculine ideal has not collapsed altogether. Rather, it seems to recover its power and strengthen itself during the era from the Gulf War to the more recent Iraqi War. Still, literary discourse can imply a counter narrative within itself, or can be interpreted as a counter message, however it is forced to serve as an AIE system. After reading this book, what encourages us most is the author's assuring belief in the existence of such subversive power inherent in literature.
The chapters in the book treat American adolescent novels alone, contextualizing them against modern American social history. Similar narratives are, however, found in other nations such as England and Japan and other developed countries. By applying and comparing, we can extend Yoshida's achievement in the book to the further understanding of children's literature, its subversive power and the danger of it becoming a tool of AIE.
The book is written in Japanese, and those who can understand the language have the whole privilege to read this book from cover to cover. You need not, however, be disappointed, if you can read only English: some of the chapters originally appeared as separate articles in English language publications. Chapter 4. on Cormier's The Chocolate War, was from Children's Literature 26, part of chapter 5. on the Earthsea Quartet, was from The Presence of the Past in Children's Literature, chapter 6. on Cormier's I am the Cheese, from Tinker Bell 49, chapter 7. on Park's Quest, from Bridges for the Young, and the last chapter on Myers's Fallen Angels is from Tinker Bell 47. Except the last article, these English versions are available from Yoshida's homepage:
http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~zz9j-ysd/listofbooks.html
Bibliography
Yoshida, Junko. "The Quest for Masculinity in The Chocolate War: Conceptions of Masculinity in the 1970s." Children's Literature 26 (1998).
………. "The Masculine Mystique" Revisioned in the Earthsea Quartet", The Present of the Past in Children's Literature, Westport, Conn./ London: Greenwood Press, 2003.
………. "Telling a New Narrative of American Adam and his Manhood in I Am the Cheese" Tinker Bell 49 (2004).
………. "A Reconciliation with Asia, Female, and Other: Regeneration of Masculinity in Park's Quest," Bridges for the Young: The Fiction of Katherine Paterson, Scarecrow Press, 2003.
………. "The Search for a New Narrative of Manhood in Myers's Fallen Angels." Tinker Bell 47 (2004).
Ariko Kawabata