『夕鶴』と『オセロー』

―侵犯する「周縁」としての女とドラマ

抄録

　Shakespeare’s Othello and Kinoshita Junji’s Yūzuru have a common dramatic structure. In both plays Othello and Yohyō symbolically leave the “margin”，the maternal world of Desdemona and Tsū. They then move into the “centre,” the male dominant world represented by Iago or Sōdo, finally returning again to their wives.

　The “centre”and the “margin”are in a cultural binary relation. The former term refers to authority, power, or organized community as defined by a cultural code; and the latter refers to whatever can not be contained in the “centre.” Both terms have a dialectical interaction, in which the “centre” holds the dominant position by excluding the “margin,” while the “margin” threatens the “centre” by transgressing its hierarchical order.

　Both Othello, a. Moor, and Yohyō, an idiot, are excluded from the “centre,” but they are embraced by Desdemona and Tsū in the mother-child relationship of the “margin.” However，when Iago and Sōdo implant the patriarchal code of the “centre” into the heroes, the latter leave their wives and become contained in the “centre,” resulting in Desdemona’s death and Tsū’s transformation into a crane.

　But Othello and Yohyō, losing their beloved ones, again leave the “centre” and discover the value of the “margin.” Though Desdemona and Tsū are oppressed or exploited by patriarchal power, their disappearance also has a positive meaning, i. e., the heroines are paradoxically released from the control of the “centre,” and this emphasizes the importance of the “margin.” In other words, the heroines deconstruct the “centre，”revealing its limits and vulnerabilities.