Gaskellの'The Poor Clare' : 超自然現象の実在を否定する小説

Elizabeth Gaskell wrote 'The Poor Clare,' a short story, in 1856. This story deals with a ghastly double that possesses one of the characters. For this plain reason, the story has been indisputably classified as one of the author's tales of the supernatural. For example, the author may be using supernatural material that is acceptable in fiction, such as the apparition in her ghost story, 'The Old Nurse's Story' (1852). The double in 'The Poor Clare' may also be used to provoke interest in the story. However, it appears, on close scrutiny, that the converse is true. This treatise is an attempt to prove that the story was written in order to deny the reality of the supernatural, even though the double appears in the story. The story may be outlined as follows. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, in a Lancashire village, an old Catholic woman called Bridget put a curse on a Mr. Gisborne who had killed her dog. She cursed him saying, "You shall see the creature you love best become a terror and loathing to all." The curse invokes an evil spirit on Mr. Gisborne's daughter Lucy (who afterwards turns out to be Bridget's granddaughter). Mr. Gisborne drives his daughter out of his house. All other people who love Lucy also run away from her, seeing the terrible double of Lucy appear behind her, though they are attracted by her gentleness and her beauty. Knowing that Lucy is suffering, Bridget is surprised, enters a convent, and leads a life of self-sacrifice. When she dies, the evil spirit disappears and Lucy is freed. The author shows in several ways that it cannot be concluded that these phenomena are supernatural. First of all, Bridget is not a witch, though villagers call her one. They suspect that she uses witchcraft, and feel weird because she is a stranger in Lancashire, lives by herself in a bleak hut, looks old, and always mumbles to herself. However, the author is as cautious as can be in clarifying Bridget's purpose in coming to Lancashire. In Ireland, Bridget was a nurse to a lady who was married to a landlord in Lancashire, and she also followed her foster child as a housekeeper. After both her lord and her lady died, Bridget has been left alone. Bridget deeply loved Mary, her only child. Mary was bored, however, with living in the country, and went to the Continent and was lost there. Bridget's anxiety for her child's safety was enormous. While waiting for her daughter's return, Bridget devotes herself to caring for Mary's dog, which Mary left behind. It is the dog that Mr. Gisborne whimsically shoots with a gun to death. Bridget gets so angry that she curses him with intense words of blame. It shows how angry she is, and that her reasons to blame him are real, not supernatural. Besides, Mr. Gisborne turns out to be the man that met Mary on the Continent and took advantage of her under the false pretense of an offer of marriage. Mary had a child named Lucy. However, when she knew that they had not gotten formally married, and that therefore Lucy was an illegitimate child, she drowned herself in the river. So, the significance of Bridget's curse was twofold. It blamed Mr. Gisborne for the death of the dog, and for his deceit that had led to her daughter's death. The nature of Bridget's curse had nothing to do with witches or witchcraft. The movements of the double that possesses Lucy are quite realistic. However, they do not suggest that the author intended for the double to represent the supernatural. Actually, 'The Poor Clare' is fiction narrated by a young lawyer who is Lucy's lover. The author makes a tricky contrivance here. The narrator is very nervous and often becomes ill with a fever. His condition is sometimes critical. He is weary of life and the world, and finally takes time off work and starts on a wandering journey. Because of his situation and physical condition, this narrator cannot always be trusted by the readers. The supernatural being of the double might be just an illusion that the narrator witnessed in a fever. Moreover, the double of an evil spirit with the power to possess others is the work of a witch and not that of an innocent girl. Contrarily, in the story, pure Lucy is tormented by the apparition of herself, even though her characteristics are not common to those of the evil spirit. It can be construed into the following meaning; that is, the author may have intended to contradict the reality of the evil spirit's appearance, and so reject the generally accepted belief in the supernatural by her portrayal of the evil spirit. The double is nothing more than a visible symbol of social contempt for the illegitimate child. In fact, it is Mr. Gisborne, Lucy's father, that is to blame. However, the characters in the story unjustly blame Lucy, which tortures her all the more. This misplaced blame is also severely criticized by the author. Thus, Gaskell uses supernatural elements to show that the reality of the invisible world is very doubtful, or rather deniable. She did not write this story on the premise that there is such a world, though many critics have assumed that she did. It would appear that such an interpretation is wrong because it assumes that the double of Lucy is merely a fictitious device used to amuse the reader, whereas, in fact, it represents socially unjustified criticism. Two years after 'The Poor Clare,' Gaskell wrote 'Lois the Witch,' a tragedy of witch-hunting in Salem. In this story, the author clearly indicates that belief in the reality of the supernatural is erroneous. 'The Poor Clare' is a forerunner to 'Lois the Witch.'

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