An Interpretation Of Biblical Archetypes In The Winter Of Our Discontent

The Winter of Our Discontent, as Steinbeck’s last novel, highly generalized hislifelong writing motives and concepts. Neither its artistic value nor its ideologicaldepth is inferior to his other masterpieces like The Grapes of Wrath. To betterunderstand this work and Steinbeck’s thoughts, this thesis, based on Biblicalarchetypes, attempts to analyze the theme, structure, character and images in thisparticular work, which reveals the profound influence of Bible on Steinbeck.There are seven parts in this thesis including an introduction, five chapters and aconclusion. The introduction part contains an introduction to Steinbeck and his works,and literature review. The first chapter introduces archetypal criticism and Frye’stheory. The second chapter analyses two main themes “Good and Evil”,“Sin andAtonement” in the novel based on Biblical themes, and “good and evil”theme is apermanent one in Steinbeck’s literary creation. The third chapter devotes itself to thedegeneration and redemption of Ethan and Marullo by employing Frye’s U-shapednarrative structure, which proves Steinbeck’s belief in human being’sself-improvement. The fourth chapter goes to the protagonist’s fate and character withBiblical images. The image of Ethan was regarded as the incarnation of Jesus, Judahand Adam. The fifth chapter puts all its effort to study biblical images like water andlight, which gives the way to know Steinbeck’s intension in literary creation. Throughthe analysis of the relationship between Steinbeck and Bible on the basis of Biblicalarchetypes, it can be concluded that Bible has a profound influence on Steinbeck’screation which can be found through all his works. His last novel summarizes hislife-long intension of creation.