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Seminar Paper 98


Eisuke Kameyama

First Created on January 9, 1999
Last revised on January 9, 1999

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ホールデンと赤いハンチング帽
〜ホールデンの人間性〜

The Catcher in the Ryeの基本的テーマを簡単に言うと、子供の夢の世界と大人の現実の世界との対立ということになるだろう。つまり、子供の純粋無くな心と大人が作り出した実社会を生きていくためのルールや現実処理の方法との対立、という身近で誰しもが経験しているような事がテーマとなっている。

主人公ホールデンは子供の夢を持ちながら大人の現実とぶつかり、一人奮闘している。特に彼はインチキなものに対して並々ならぬ嫌悪感を示す。インチキなものに触れた時の彼の言動は激しく、偽悪的とも言えるほどきつい。

After I shut the door and started back to the living room, he yelled something at me, but I couldn't exactly hear him. I'm pretty sure he yelled `Good luck!' at me. I hope not. I hope to hell not. I'd never yell 'Good luck!' at anybody. It sounds terrible, when you think about it. (p. 13)
例えばこの場面においてスペンサー先生が言う`Good luck' という言葉にホールデンは自分ならばそんな事は絶対に言わないと反発する。「幸運を祈る」という言葉を、祈りもしないのに言い相手の幸運とは何かを考えもしないで口にすることに彼はインチキさを感じる。同じように、スペンサー先生との対話の場面
“`I had the privilege of meeting your mother and dad when they had their little chat with Dr Thurmer some weeks ago. They're grand people.' `Yes, they are. They're very nice.' Grand. There's a word I really hate. It's a phony. I could puke every time I hear it.” (p. 8)
や、サリーとの電話の場面
“`I'd love to. Grand.' Grand. If there's one word I hate, it's grand. It's so phony. For a second, I was tempted to tell her to forget about the matinee.”(p. 96)
に出てくるGrandという言葉にも反発し、リリアン・シモンズの行った“`How marvelous to see you!'”(p. 78) という言葉にもインチキさを感じ取る。
Where I lived at Pencey, I lived in the Ossenburger Memorial Wing of the new dorms. It was only for juniors and seniors. I was a junior. My roommate was a senior. It was named after this guy Ossenburger that went to Pencey. He made a pot of dough in the undertaking business after he got out of Pencey. What he did, he started these undertaking parlors all over the country that you could get members of your family buried for about five bucks apiece. You see old Ossenburger. He probably just shoves them in a sack and dumps them in the river. Anyway he gave Pencey a pile of dough, and they named our wing after him. The first football game of the year, he came up to school in this big goddam Cadillac, and we all had to stand up in the grandstand and give him a locomotive−that's a cheer. Then, the next morning, in chapel, he made a speech that lasted about ten hours. He started off with about fifty corny jokes, just to show us what a regular guy he was. Very big deal. Then he started telling us how he was never ashamed, when he was in some kind of trouble or something, to get right down on his knees and pray to God. He told us we should always pray to God−talk to Him and all−wherever we were. He told us we ought to think of Jesus as our buddy and all. He said he talked to Jesus all the time. Even when he was driving his car. That killed me. I can just see the big phony bastard shifting into first gear and asking Jesus to send him a few more stiffs.(p. 14)
またこの場面に出てくるオッセンバーガーというペンシーの卒業生に対しても、ホールデンはインチキ者扱いして皮肉を言っている。さらに、ホールデンは自分の父親の弁護士という仕事でさえも、
`I mean they're all right if they go around saving innocent guys' lives all the time, and like that, but you don't do that kind of stuff if you're a lawyer. All you do is make a lot of dough and play golf and play bridge and buy cars and drink Martinis and look like a hot-shot. And besides. Even if you did go around saving guy's lives and all, how would you know if you did it because what you really wanted to do was be a terrific lawyer, with everybody slapping you on the back and congratulating you in court when the goddam trial was over, the reporters and everybody, the way it is in the dirty movies? How would you know you weren't being a phony? The trouble is, you wouldn't.' (p. 155)
と言い、インチキ呼ばわりしている。その上彼は自分のことを知っている人のいないどこか遠くへ行き、誰とも会話しなくていいように耳の聞こえないふりをしようという事まで考えるほどインチキなものに接したくないのである。
There was this one boy at Elkton Hills, named James Castle, that wouldn't take back something he said about this very conceited guy, and one of Stabile's lousy friends went and squealed on him to Stabile. So Stabile, with about six other dirty bastards, went down to James Castle's room and went in and locked the goddam door and tried to make him take back what he said, but he wouldn't do it. So they started in on him. I won't even tell you what they did to him−it's too repulsive−but he still wouldn't take it back, old James Castle. And you should've seen him. He was a skinny little weak-looking guy, with wrists about as big as pencils. Finally, what he did, instead of taking back what he said, he jumped out the window.(p. 153)
そして、逆に彼はこの話の中に出てくる、インチキな奴等に屈しないジェームズ・キャスルのような人物をとても気に入るのである。

また彼は今まで述べたようなインチキなものに対して対立する決意を示す度に赤いハンチング帽をかぶる。“`This is a people shooting hat' `I shoot people in this hat.”(p. 19) と言ったり、ストラドレーターと喧嘩をして負けた時にハンチング帽をかぶったり、ペンシーを出て行く時にそれをかぶるのは、そのあらわれである。ホールデンにとってインチキであるストラドレーターに喧嘩で負けたことによってインチキなものに対する決意を新たにするのである。

しかし、このホールデンのインチキなものに対する言動に対して共感してくれる人物がまわりにはいなかった。その結果彼は孤独感を味わい、ジェーンや妹のフィービーに何度も電話しようとしたり、死んだはずの弟のアクリーに話しかけたりして心のつながりを求めたのである。またストラドレーターがジェーンとデートをする時に、彼に“`Ask her if she still keeps all her kings in the back low.'”(p. 29) と言ったのも、心のつながりを求めている象徴的な行動である。

ホールデンは、確かに子供の夢と大人の現実の対立という構図の中において子供側にいるのは間違いない。例えば兄のD.Bの書いた「秘密の金魚」という話の中に出てくる自分で買った金魚を人に見せない子供や、チェッカーをやるときに絶対に自分のキングを動かさないでいるジェーンに対してそのきれいなものはそのまま、という感覚に共感を覚える。またホールデン自身も、
While he was doing it, I went over to my window and opened it and packed a snowball with my bare hands. The snow was very good for packing. I didn't throw it at anything, though. I started to throw it. At a car that was parked across the street. But I changed my mind. The car looked so nice and white. Then I started to throw it at a hydrant, but that looked too nice and white, too. Finally I didn't throw it at anything. All I did was close the window and walk around the room with the snowball, packing it harder. A little while later, I still had it with me when I and Brossard and Ackley got on the bus. The bus driver opened the door and made me throw it out. I told him I wasn't going to chuck it at anybody, but he wouldn't believe me. People never believe you.(p. 32)
この場面で、きれいなものはそのままにしておこうと雪玉を投げないでいる。またホールデンはフィービーはもちろん、博物館で会う子供やスケート靴をはいている少女でも、子供には全身的共感を示す。しかし彼は完全な子供の世界の住人というわけではない。
“The Navy guy and I told each other we were glad to've met each other. Which always kills me. I'm always saying `Glad to've met you' to somebody I'm not at all glad I met. If you want to stay alive , you have to say that stuff, though.”(p. 79)
ホールデンはこの場面でお目にかかれてうれしくとも何ともない相手に「お目にかかれてうれしかった」と彼の言うところのインチキな言葉を使わなければ生きていくことができないと理解している。そしてこの事が大人の世界への適応を表している。彼は子供の夢の世界にいながらも大人の現実の世界に足を踏み入れている状態にあり、彼の中には子供の夢と大人の現実とが混在している。この彼の精神状態は、“I have gray hair. I really do. The one side of my head ‐the other side‐ is full of millions of gray hairs. I've had them ever since I was a kid.”(p. 8) というところが象徴的に示している。

ホールデンは子供の世界の住人でいたかったが、
“I passed by this playground and watched a couple of very tiny kids on a seesaw. One of them was sort of fat, and I put my hand on the skinny kid's end, to sort of even up the weight, but you could tell they didn't want me around, so I let them alone.”(p. 110)
といった場面などからだんだん自分が大人になっているのに気付く。彼は子供にはアリーのように永遠に子供の世界の住人であって欲しかった。そして彼は、
I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around −nobody big, I mean−expect me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff−I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all.(p. 156)
この文にあるように子供が崖から落ちる=インチキな大人になる事をくい止めるCatcherの役割をしたかった。そしてその後ホールデンは、子供が大人になるのは止められない、Catcherの役割は終わったのだという事を悟っていく。
Boy, it began to rain like a bastard. In buckets, I swear to God. All the parents and mothers and everybody went over and stood right under the roof of the carrousel, so they wouldn't get soaked to the skin or anything, but I stuck around on the bench for quite a while. I got pretty soaking wet, especially my neck and my pants. My hunting hat really gave me quite a lot of protection, in a way, but I got soaked anyway. I didn't care, though. I felt so damn happy all of a sudden, the way old Phoebe kept going around and around. (p. 191)
しかしホールデンは雨の中フィービーが回転木馬に乗っているこの場面で、救われた気持ちになる。回転木馬の様にぐるぐる回って子供は大きくなるが、それと同時に次の世代の子供が出てくる、つまり、ライ麦畑は永遠であるという事に気付くのである。

 


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