Hawthorne Detective Stories Characterization Research

As one of the three major detective novelists in the world, Conan Doyle’sSherlock Holmes series was a classic hard to surpass by any detective novelist in theworld. Detective novel experienced stages of translation, imitative writing andoriginal writing since introduced into China. Detective novels took half of theforeign novels translated in19thcentury to early20thcentury, whose translators alsobegan to write detective novels later. Cheng Xiaoqing was the most concerned oneamong the many detective novelists, with his work Hawthorne Series very popularfor its integration of China traditional cultural factors in the aspect of thought intothe basic imitation of Sherlock Holmes series and its addition of the various socialphenomenons in China of the day. Hawthorne Series has always been compared withThe Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and the comparative study on Hawthorne andHolmes was a inevitable aspect for researchers focusing on Cheng Xiaoqing andHawthorne Series. Imitations of Sherlock Holmes series could be seen in thenarration mode, character design and even the language style in the HawthorneSeries. But there were also originals among imitations. For example, Hawthorne wasa combination of the wisdom of Holmes with the chivalry of Chinese traditionalswordsman and the image of Chinese intellectuals concerning social issues. BaoLang was a integration of the loyalty and bravery of Watson with the image ofintellectuals concerning current affairs. The image of criminals, one of the fourelements of detective novels, was the most original part of Hawthorne Series.However, by now articles specialized in the characters in Hawthorne Series were few,with most papers only taking it as a chapter in the research on Hawthorne Series.Character, one of the three elements of novels, was the subject of a novel, on whichthe process and development of the story depended on. This paper mainly researched on the characters in Hawthorne Series, especially the images of criminals.