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''The Monster'' is an 1898 novella by American author Stephen Crane (1871–1900). The story takes place in the small, fictional town of Whilomville, New York. An African-American coachman named Henry Johnson, who is employed by the town's physician, Dr. Trescott, becomes horribly disfigured after he saves Trescott's son from a fire. When Henry is branded a "monster" by the town's residents, Trescott vows to shelter and care for him, resulting in his family's exclusion from the community. The fictional town of Whilomville, which is used in 14 other Crane stories, was based on Port Jervis, New York, where Crane lived with his family for a few years during his youth. It is thought that he took inspiration from several local men who were similarly disfigured, although modern critics have made numerous connections between the story and the 1892 lynching in Port Jervis of an African-American man named Robert Lewis. A study of prejudice, fear and isolation in a small town, the novella was first published in ''Harper's Magazine'' in August 1898. A year later it was included in ''The Monster and Other Stories''—the last collection of Crane's work to be published during his lifetime. Written in a more exact and less dramatic style than two of his previous major works (''Maggie: A Girl of the Streets'' and ''The Red Badge of Courage''), ''The Monster'' differs from the other Whilomville stories in its scope and length. Its themes include the paradoxical study of monstrosity and deformity, as well as race and tolerance. Both the novella and collection received mixed reviews from critics, although ''The Monster'' is now considered one of Crane's best works. ==Background and writing== Crane began writing ''The Monster'' in June 1897 while living in Oxted, England with his longtime partner Cora Taylor.〔Wertheim (1994), p. 266〕 Despite his previous success—''The Red Badge of Courage'' had gone through 14 printings in the United States and six in England—Crane was running out of money. To survive financially, he worked at a feverish pitch, writing prolifically for both the English and the American markets. He later remarked that he wrote ''The Monster'' "under the spur of great need", as he desperately required funds.〔Goldsby (2006), p. 6〕 In August of that year, Crane and Cora were injured in a carriage accident while visiting friend Harold Frederic and his mistress Kate Lyon in Homefield, Kenley; after a week of recuperation, they followed the couple on vacation to Ireland, where Crane finished the story.〔Wertheim (1994), p. 271〕 ''The Monster'' was Crane's first story to feature the fictional town of Whilomville; it would eventually serve as the setting of 14 stories, 13 of which would appear in the 1900 anthology ''Whilomville Stories''.〔Nagel (Fall 1999), p. 36〕 The town was based on Port Jervis, New York, where the author lived from the age of six to eleven.〔Wertheim (1997), p. 369〕 Although Crane and his mother relocated to Asbury Park, New Jersey, in 1880, until 1896 he frequently stayed with his older brother and Port Jervis resident William Howe Crane.〔Goldsbury (2006), p. 116〕 Crane admitted to his publishers that while he readily used Port Jervis as inspiration while writing ''The Monster'', he was anxious to ensure that the residents of his previous hometown did not recognize themselves in the fictional Whilomville.〔Schaefer (1996), p. 236〕 While Crane biographer Thomas Beer claimed to trace the prototype of Henry Johnson to a Port Jervis teamster named Levi Hume,〔Wertheim (1997), p. 225〕 Crane's niece, Edna Crane Sidbury, believed the character and his disfigurement were influenced by a local waste collector whose face was damaged by cancer.〔Naito (2006), p. 36〕 In ''Black Frankenstein: The Making of an American Metaphor'', author Elizabeth Young theorized that Crane may also have been inspired by popular freak show attractions such as Zip the Pinhead, whose real name was William Henry Johnson, and Joseph Merrick, the Elephant Man.〔Young (2008), p. 81〕 It is also possible that Crane found thematic inspiration in Henrik Ibsen's ''An Enemy of the People''; although first published in 1882, the play—about a physician who finds himself ostracized by his community—first became popular in the United States in the mid-1890s.〔Nagel (Spring 1999), p. 50〕 Modern critics have connected the novella's themes of racial division to a violent episode in Port Jervis' history. On June 2, 1892, an African-American man named Robert Lewis was lynched for allegedly assaulting a local white woman.〔Goldsby (2006), p. 105〕 On his way to the Port Jervis jail, Lewis was set upon by a mob of several hundred men who dragged him through the town, beat him and hanged him from a tree.〔 William Howe Crane lived within sight of where the lynching took place and was one of the few men, together with the chief of police, who attempted to intervene.〔Naito (2006), p. 37〕 Although Stephen Crane was not present, there were detailed accounts published in both the ''Port Jervis Gazette'' and the ''New York Tribune'', and Crane contributed to the ''Tribune'' at the time.〔 The ''Gazette'' marked the day of Lewis' lynching as "one of the most disgraceful scenes that was ever enacted in Port Jervis", and activist Ida B. Wells launched a campaign to investigate the murder as well as the widespread theory that Lewis was set up.〔Goldsby (2006), pp. 107–108〕 Of the 1,134 reported lynchings throughout the United States between 1882 and 1899, Lewis was the only black man to be lynched in New York.〔Wertheim (1997), p. 195〕〔Goldsby (2006), p. 111〕 Crane initially sent his a manuscript of more than 21,000 words to ''McClure's'', along with several other works including "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky", but it remained unpublished for nearly a year.〔Wertheim (1994), p. 277〕 After ''McClure's'' eventual rejection, ''The Monster'' appeared in the August 1898 issue of ''Harper's Magazine'' with illustrations by Peter Newell.〔Wertheim (1994), p. 333〕 A year later, it was published in the United States by Harper & Brothers Publishers in a collection titled ''The Monster and Other Stories'', which included two other works by Crane, "The Blue Hotel" and "His New Mittens". The first British edition, which added an additional four stories, was published in 1901.〔Wertheim (1997), p. 228〕 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「The Monster (novella)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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