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''Madman's Drum'' is a 1930 wordless novel by American artist Lynd Ward (1905–1985). Its 118 images tell the story of a slave trader who steals a demon-faced drum from an African he murders, and the consequences for him and his family. The book was executed in wood engravings. It is the second of Ward's six wordless novels, after of 1929. Ward was more ambitious with this second work in the medium: the characters are more nuanced, the plot more developed and complicated, and his outrage at social injustice more explicit. He used a finer degree of detail in the artwork, through a wider variety of carving tools, and was expressive in his use of symbolism and exaggerated emotional facial expressions. The book was well received upon release, and the success of Ward's first two wordless novels encouraged publishers to publish more books in the genre. In 1943 psychologist Henry Murray used two images from the work in his Thematic Apperception Test of personality traits. ''Madman's Drum'' is considered less successfully executed than ', and Ward streamlined his work in his next wordless novel, ''Wild Pilgrimage'' (1932). ==Synopsis== A slave trader steals from an African he murders a drum bearing the face of a demon, condemning his family to its curse. The slave trader becomes rich and buys a mansion for his family, in which he displays the drum and the sword he used to kill the drum's original owner. He catches his son playing on the drum, beats the boy, and insists he read and study. The slave trader is lost at sea when he tries to return to Africa. The boy devotes himself to study, while distancing himself from the vices of his peers. He embraces and then rejects religion, and a cross he tosses to the floor trips and kills his mother. He becomes a successful scientist, and in middle age marries and has two daughters, but is cold and indifferent to his family. One by one he loses them: his wife dies after having an affair with a musician, one daughter falls into depression when her labor-organizer lover is hanged for his communist sympathies, and the other daughter falls in love with a man who pimps her to others. Driven insane by the loss of all who were close to him, he equips himself with the forbidden drum to play music with his wife's musician lover. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Madman's Drum」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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