アメリカ南部精神の研究 : ウィリアム・フォークナー、O・ヘンリー、スティーヴン・フォスター、ジョン・P・スーザを通して(共同研究)(英語英米文学専攻)

Abstract

This is a joint study on the American South through William Faulkner, O. Henry, C.S. Foster and John P. Sousa. In Part 1, racial tension is considered through W. Faulkner's detective story Intruder in the Dust, and in Part 2, O. Henry's literary works and Foster's nostalgic songs are discussed in relation with the Southern culture. Faulkner seems to have wished that the severe racial problem of his South should be more humanely improved by Southern people themselves, not by the North which has failed in doing so, though that will take much time in the future. O. Henry criticizes the Utilitarianism of the North but he also rejects the old, stubborn nature of Southern people though he as a Southerner loved his South very deeply. Some of Foster's or Sousa's dear and popular songs had deep relation with the tragic situation of black slaves in the South and the nostalgic home of the Southern countryside, etc. While the South has been rapidly developing industrially and economically, it still keeps the very traditional values of its own which are both characteristic and universal, in other words, humane.