An Archetypal Approach To The Adventures Of Augie March

As one of the greatest writers in the world, Saul Bellow and his masterpiece TheAdventures of Augie March holds an important position in the world literature. Saul Bellow,the American Jewish writer, cares more about the spiritual crisis and the diminishment ofindividuality in modern society. The Adventures of Augie March, which is often regarded ashis epochal work, helped establish his writing style and promote his literary writings to a newheight.The study of the archetype theory seemed to have reached a maturity stage. It ispossible that the application of the archetypal criticism provides us with a feasible andconvenient way to study the literary texts. Though the novel is a world-known work, the studyof it in China is still in primary stage and rather inadequate and incomplete. What’s more, onlyfew researchers have tried to use this theory to analyze this novel in China. Considering manymyth-archetypal elements embedded in this novel, this thesis attempts to analyze TheAdventures of Augie March with the archetypal theory and dig up the deep thematicimplications.This thesis consists of six parts. The fist part is the introduction that brieflydemonstrates the basic information of Saul Bellow, The Adventures of Augie March andstudies on it at home and abroad. Chapter One introduces the theoretical foundation from itsdevelopment, concept and major representative figures. Chapter Two，Chapter Three andChapter Four are the main body of the whole thesis. In these parts, the archetype of questmotif, the archetype of love, the archetypes of characters and places are analyzed respectively.In the end the thesis generalizes the main points of the thesis and pints out the limitations anddirections of future research.It is hoped that the analysis of archetypes in The Adventures of Augie March will greatlyenrich the study of this novel and offers a fresh perspective to interpret this novel.