ハーディの「語り」の技法 : 「萎えた腕」に見られる距離感

‘The Withered Arm’ (1888) in Wessex Tales (1888) by Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is an excellent short story in terms of narrative techniques and its deep insight into human nature. Hardy is even now regarded rather fixedly as a novelist of tragic and pessimistic novels. His attitude in writing short stories has been thought as that of writing novels. This rather conventional and fixed image of Hardy is at once put in question if we read his short stories from the viewpoint of narrative techniques, which have been focused in early 20th century mainly in American literature. Hardy started writing novels with an acute critical eye on the society of class-consciousness, and, therefore, his works are in a sense full of satirical and ironical treatment of the society and its system. His attitude towards conventional society is of course imbedded in ‘The Withered Arm’. With this Hardy was also an ambitious writer with keen consciousness of narrative techniques as is evident in his memoranda in Life of Thomas Hardy 1840-1928. He seems to have tried every mode of narrative techniques including even humour. Focusing on Hardy’s narrative techniques might have the possibility of changing the quality of estimation of his short stories, and would contribute to a reevaluation of his writings in general. In this paper, ‘The Withered Arm’ is discussed and analyzed from the point of narrative techniques along with the attention to linguistic characteristics in the story.