아리시마 다케오(有島武郎)의 『대홍수 전(大洪水の前)』 연구 - 성서에서 문학으로의 전환 -

Abstract

Arishima Takeo wrote Before the Great Flood (1919) that was based on the story of Noah’s Ark in the Bible. Christianity remained an unsolved problem to Arishima, even though he apostatized from it. In this paper, I study how Arishima rearranged the story of Noah’s Ark through Before the Great Flood. First, Before the Great Flood is literally described as depicting the world of ‘before the Flood.’ That means that there is no God’s salvation available like ‘after the Flood.’ Also, Noah and his family obey God’s word in the Bible, but Japheth, a son of Noah, asks why only his family survives to the last and agonizes about it in Before the Great Flood. It is nothing less than Arishima’s doubt about ‘being chosen’. Meanwhile, Darren Aronofsky’s movie ‘Noah’ was released in 2014. In spite of nearly a century’s interval, ‘Noah’ and Before the Great Flood have several similarities. While each of them is recreating Noah’s story in their own ways, they still have their own similarities with the Bible. For Arishima, it was an essential step in structuring his ideas about Christianity.