resign oneself to~ 復習
1995年に公開されたCGアニメーション長編映画、「トイ・ストーリー」はもはや誰もが一度は見たことのある古典的作品になりつつあります。子供から大人まで楽しめるコメディ要素満載の映画ですが、別の角度で見てみると「コメディ」のひとことで済ますわけにはいかないようです。BBCから取り上げます。
The dark side of Toy Story
As Pixar’s classic animation turns 20, Nicholas Barber finds out what made the tale of Woody and Buzz Lightyear so special.
It’s a scene from the creepiest of Philip K Dick-inspired science-fiction thrillers. Stranded in a hostile environment, a man discovers that everything he knows about the world is a lie. All of his memories are fake, all of his convictions wrong. He isn’t the hero he assumed he was. He isn’t even an individual. He is an automaton, manufactured from metal and plastic, his only purpose to amuse his creators. No wonder Buzz Lightyear gets so depressed.
It’s exactly 20 years since audiences first saw that scene in Toy Story, Pixar’s debut feature-length cartoon. Heralded as a groundbreaking triumph in 1995, the film is now enshrined as a classic, and every other Hollywood studio has copied its innovations: its eerily realistic digital animation, its snappy screwball dialogue – co-written by Buffy/Avengers mastermind, Joss Whedon.
But the film’s most radical element, and the one which hasn’t been imitated by any other studio, is its theme of disillusionment. As hilarious and heartwarming as Toy Story may be, its impressively downbeat thesis is that you’re not special, you’re the same as everyone else, and you won’t be content unless you resign yourself to your unremarkable fate. That’s quite something from a cartoon co-starring a talking Mr Potato Head.
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151120-the-dark-side-of-toy-story
今回取り上げる表現は “resign oneself to~”です。 “resign”というと反射的に「やめる」という意味が思い浮かびますが、文脈的に相応しくないことは明らかです。LDOCEで確認してみますと “to make yourself accept something that is bad but cannot be changed”と定義づけられており、G4（大修館書店）では「〈人が〉〈運命・状況など〉に甘んじて従う」とありました。例文として “He resigned himself to his fate”で「彼は運命に身を任せた」が挙げられており、この記事でも同等の意味であるといえます。（Inaho）
