A Biblical Archetypal Interpretation Of The Thorn Birds

The Thorn Birds is written by Australian famous woman writer Colleen McCullough. It has attracted much attention and interest from readers and critics since its publication. It’s about three generations of an Australian family. It composes a sad and melancholy but also stirring symphony and solemn story by three female characters who are very brave to fight against their fates. The influence of The Bible on this novel cannot be neglected. The analysis of this novel is not comprehensive if we neglect its influence. Therefore this article will utilize the archetypal criticism; analyze some typical aspects in this novel which include archetypes related to the The Bible.This article is divided into five chapters. The first chapter gives information about the author, the creation background and the novel. The second chapter includes an over-all comment on the novel, including studies home and abroad. In addition, this chapter talks about the significance of this study. The Third chapter lays a theoretical basis for the following parts, introducing the theory of archetypal criticism including the outline of three people’s theories:Jung’s collective unconsciousness, Frazer’s mythical archetypal criticism and Frye’s integration of the two. The fourth chapter is the most important part of this thesis which explains how those biblical archetypes are employed in the novel The Thorn Birds from the aspects of characters, narrative patterns and themes. Numbers of quotations are utilized in this chapter in order to offer concrete examples for analysis. Chapter five is the conclusion. First it summaries the previous chapters, then it comes to the conclusion that McCullough endows all the biblical archetypes with modern meanings by applying to the theory of archetypal criticism. Her great perception into humanity, revealment of religion and human’s belief and praises for human’s persistence in the process of surpassing weakness endows this novel with profound thoughts and spirit. Also some limitations of this thesis are talked about in this chapter.