Is 私 in 私が我慢ならず object or subject?

Question

I found this sentence:

食事の時しか顔を合わせることもなかったし、互いに口を開いて声を出すこともなかった。映画をよく見に行くぐらいのことしかしない高校生だったのだが、母から見れば俗世に気持を奪われている私が我慢ならず、たまに憤怒の言葉を投げつけてきたが、そうすると私は、十八になったらすぐに家を出て行くんだ、と母に言い返していた

which is translated:

In high school a fondness for the movies was about the worst I could have been accused of, but Mother had no patience with such frivolity and would snap angrily at me from time to time. "I'm leaving home as soon as I turn eighteen," I'd retort

Reading 私が我慢ならず I thought it means something like "I can't/couldn't tolerate", since the が marks 私 as subject, but from the translation it seems to be the mother.

As far as I found, 母から見れば should mean "From my mother's perspective", and たまに憤怒の言葉を投げつけてきた that occasionally someone (I think the mother) uses angry words; the が in 私が throws me off, though: it seems to mark 私 as the subject, but then what follows until the next 私 seems to have the mother as subject.

I found that が can also mark the object of some verbs, so I guess that's the case, but after browsing SE for a while I can't find anything that makes me understand how can I say if 私 in 私が我慢ならず is the object or the subject.

I also don't really understand 俗世に気持を奪われている私, not sure if this matters in the question at hand - it sounds like "The me who had her feelings stolen by the world", which could make sense if the mother was angry at the daughter being passive, but the translation uses "frivolity".

(Also, I noticed it's 我慢ならず and not 我慢しない, not sure how なる instead of する influences here; I'm guessing it's 我慢(に)なる, meaning the mother reached the point of not having patience with the daughter, but again I'm guessing.)

Answer 1

Let's look more closely at the core pieces you're struggling with.

Chunk 1

Reading 私が我慢ならず I thought it means something like "I can't/couldn't tolerate", since the が marks 私 as subject, but from the translation it seems to be the mother.

Your interpretation isn't quite right here. が does indeed mark 私 as the subject, but it would only mean "I can't tolerate" if the verb were 我慢する -- the active form.

Instead, the verb here is 我慢なる -- literally, "to become tolerance" (?), idiomatically closer to "to be bearable". Note that verbs of becoming, potential, and ability and certain adjectives (like なる, 分かる, できる, すき, きらい, etc.) require が on the noun, and the verbs / adjectives semantically describe a quality of that noun. So this is saying that the 私 isn't bearable in relation to someone else (the 母 mentioned earlier in the text).

Chunk 2

As far as I found, 母から見れば should mean "From my mother's perspective", and たまに憤怒の言葉を投げつけてきた that occasionally someone (I think the mother) uses angry words; the が in 私が throws me off, though: it seems to mark 私 as the subject, but then what follows until the next 私 seems to have the mother as subject.

I found that が can also mark the object of some verbs, so I guess that's the case, but after browsing SE for a while I can't find anything that makes me understand how can I say if 私 in 私が我慢ならず is the object or the subject.

FWIW, I disagree with the linked post stating that が marks objects, much as thread commenter Nick Overacker says -- those are only objects after translation into English. In Japanese, they work out differently -- the following verb / adjective is still describing a quality of the noun marked with が, i.e. grammatically, that noun is still a subject. See my note above in Chunk 1 about verbs of becoming, potential, or ability.

Again, the が on the 私 still marks that 私 as the subject -- but only of the immediate context, of that embedded clause. If you're at all familiar with programming languages, the 私 as subject only applies to that inner scope, and the 母 remains the subject (or really topic) of the outermost scope -- until the topic is explicitly changed later in the text, with 「そうすると私​[は]{●}​、」

Chunk 3

I also don't really understand 俗世に気持を奪われている私, not sure if this matters in the question at hand - it sounds like "The me who had her feelings stolen by the world", which could make sense if the mother was angry at the daughter being passive, but the translation uses "frivolity".

It looks like you've correctly identified this as one long phrase modifying the 私. I'll warn that translations often take certain liberties, so don't view the "frivolity" as necessarily what this means.

A word-for-word translation is ugly, but sometimes useful to break things down.

[母]{mother }[から]{from}[見]{look}[れば]{if}[俗世]{everyday world  }[に]{by}[気持]{sentiment}[を]{  [OBJ]  }[奪われて]{  stealing [PASSIVE]  }[いる]{is}[私]{I}

So the "I" is having her 気持ち ("sentiment, feelings, emotions", even "attention") stolen away by the 俗世 ("the everyday world", basically "society"). And since it's the "I" that's telling us this, she clarifies that this is only 母から見れば -- "if viewed from [my] mother → from [my] mother's perspective". The 俗【ぞく】 in 俗世【ぞくせ】 has overtones of "low-brow, common, vulgar", which is why the 母 might view this as a bad thing.

Overall

What seems to be throwing you off is that we have embedded sub-clauses here. Let's visually break this up a little bit to clarify what's going on:

母から見れば俗世に気持を奪われている私が我慢ならず、

↓

母から見れば
　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　私が我慢ならず、
　　　　　　俗世に気持を奪われている

• 母から見れば establishes the context -- "if viewed from [my] mother → from [my] mother's perspective".
• The main thrust of this line is 私が我慢ならず -- "I was not bearable".
• The bit about 俗世 is a descriptor modifying that 私, telling us more about 私 -- "having [my] feelings / emotions / attention stolen away by the everyday (vulgar) world".

Chunk 4

(Also, I noticed it's 我慢あらず and not 我慢しない, not sure how なる instead of する influeces here; I'm guessing it's 我慢(に)なる, meaning the mother reached the point of not having patience with the daughter, but again I'm guessing.)

See above about 我慢する vs. 我慢なる.

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Please comment if the above doesn't address your question.

Answer 2

母から見れば、私が我慢ならない

means "In my mother's eyes, I am unbearable."

As you know, 我慢(が)ならない means 我慢できない (or 耐えられない). These are interchangeable in most cases.

ならない means できない in some fixed phrases, eg 油断ならない, 聞き捨てならない.　我慢ならない, 油断ならない sound a tiny bit more formal/literary than ～できない.

You can use it this way:

• 私(に)は彼の態度が我慢ならない/我慢できない
  His attitude is unbearable to me
• 私は彼の態度に(は)我慢(が)ならない/我慢できない
  I can't put up with his attitude
• or sometimes 私は彼の態度を我慢できない but 彼の態度を我慢(が)ならない sounds unnatural.
  I can't put up with his attitude

In your context, the が in 我慢ならない marks the subject. (It's not that the subject who does 我慢 is 私.)

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_{「～が我慢ならない」には potential の要素があるので、}

_{私(に)はそれが許せない (≂を許せない)}

_{のような、可能形「許せる」などを使った文型と同じだと考えられそうですが、「私は～を我慢ならない」は不自然なので、}

_{私は地震が怖い}

_{のように、「我慢ならない」を一つの形容詞(句)のように考えていいような気もします。}