"The Jolly Corner"に見るゴシック小説の一転回

抄録

Henry James was much bewildered in 1904 to find the United States was dramatically changed after his absence of 22 years. "The Jolly Corner" owes much to the experience and in this story an alter ego is employed to revalue the protagonist Brydon's native land and to discharge his troubled feelings. James follows the Gothic style of C. B. Brown and E. A. Poe to some extent, helped by the thought of Emerson here. But the alter ego can not be defined as a traditional Gothic device in that his role is not so much in frightening Brydon as in allowing to be manipulated by him in order to assist him to find a outlet for the uneasiness. This story suggests how the author accepted things American and how Jamesian Gothic developed in his last years.