「彼のためにろうそくを」――ヘンリー・ジェイムズ「死者たちの祭壇」におけるアメリカ金融資本主義，親密圏，許し――

抄録

Henry James’s short story, “The Altar of the Dead” (1895), portrays the people who dedicate their lives to mourn for the dead in an old Catholic church in suburban London. However, the background of this text is the shift of global economy at the turn of the century, especially the formation of financial capitalism in the United States and the decline of the British Empire in the international economic fleld. This article examines the way “The Altar of the Dead,” while depicting the human relations in the personal sphere in finde-siècle London, reflects the transforming global economy both directly and symbolically. Above all, by paying attention to the historic significance of changing economic condition, the act of forgiveness in this text can be interpreted as a behavior which counteracts the logic and dominance of economy.

After the significant industrial development and economic growth in the postbellum period, the United States saw the dominance of a small number of financiers in the whole national economy, resulting in the extreme concentration of wealth and power. On the other hand, the British Empire was losing its economic status as a world hegemony because of the Long Depression since 1873 and the rise of the late-coming industrialized countries. The consequences of these economic shifts are reflected in “The Altar of the Dead” as the invasion of new and foreign elements in personal human relations and the destruction of two conventional social order in England, the marital union and the secretive homosocial relation among elite circles. The altar, which the protagonist builds after experiencing these dire circumstance, realizes a personal and safe space isolated from the drastic change in the reality. With this altar which works as a calculator reducing the dead to numbers and representing them by candles, the protagonist establishes its own economy in a closed sphere, which is independent of the surging new economic system. However, this text would also reveal the limit of a closed economy. Contrary to the protagonist, a woman who worships the dead at their altar exhibits forgiveness to a dead man who had wronged her. This behavior recalls the notion of forgiveness which a French thinker Jacques Derrida claims as an exceptional, unconditional, and anti-economic act against unredeemable guilt.

The protagonist’s death in the final scene implies the end of the economic system in a closed territory in the new century. At the same time, the woman’s forgiveness exhibits a possibility which would transcend the logic of economy and its dominance in the time of globalization. James’s late texts in the early twentieth century repeatedly treat the issue of global capitalism, the concentration of power, and forgiveness, and “The Altar of the Dead” foreshadows, through the depiction of human behaviors in intimate sphere, the shape of new economic system and the social and emotional shifts it forces people to experience.