인간 문제에 대한 두 가지 시각: 베일리와 인치볼드

Abstract

Joanna Baillie has been regarded as the best woman playwright in the Romantic period by many contemporary critics and as a radical by some recent critics. My argument, however, is that she may be the best woman playwright, but she was not a radical. When she is compared with Elizabeth Inchbald, this view appears to become quite convincing. For my argument, I will compare Baillie’s De Monfort and Inchbald’s Every One Has His Fault. Baillie believes that human sufferings occur when human beings are under control of passions and unable to think rationally. Accordingly, she seems to claim that De Monfort, who had harbored a deep hatred against Rezenvelt since he was a child, killed him not because he was a wicked person, but because passion prevented him from thinking rationally. In her eyes, De Monfort is not an offender but a victim of his crime. Consequently, the same logic could apply to the corrupt aristocrats and exempt them from any accusations because what is to blame is not themselves but their passions. On the other hand, in Inchbald’s drama, an aristocrat like Norland is not treated with as much hospitality. Everyone in this drama has some sort of fault but he seems to have the most serious fault among the characters. He disclaims her daughter just because she got married against his will and eventually this lead Irwin, his son-in-law, in desperate poverty, to become a robber. He is also tyrannical enough to order Mrs. Ramble to get married to a man he choose against her will. These situations suggest that human sufferings derive from social and political faults, not from individual. In the post-revolutionary society where playwrights were under tremendous censorship against any subversive messages, Inchbald cleverly expressed her radical views in this play.