Anxiety And Redemption

This thesis attempts to analyze Martin Amis’s novel London Fields from the perspective of archetypal criticism. In this novel, Amis describes an apocalyptic scene of human depravity, faith crisis and the perversion of relationships at the end of the millennium. Readers will find prototypes of the Bible everywhere in the novel when they read it. The main female protagonist, whose prototype is Lucifer the fallen angel, has an evil nature and plans her own death positively and calmly. And at the same time, the author arranges the plot that three murder candidates whose prototype is the Trinity to murder her. There are also many familiar biblical imagines in the novel, while these images are completely subverted, which is quite ironic. Thus the novel shows that people in this world are barren in spirit, disordered in relationship and fallen in humanity. Throughout the whole book, London Fields portrays an apocalyptic scene as the "Revelation" in the Bible. Martin Amis points out the miserable condition of modern people in the sternest way to caution them, wishing them to introspect and stay away from the "spiritual" and "moral" wasteland. This shows Martin Amis’s sense of moral mission and his salvation complex.This thesis consists of five parts. The first part is the introduction. The second, third and fourth parts are the main parts of the thesis. The second part analyzes the archetypes of the main characters in London Fields. The murderee Nicola’s archetype is Lucifer—the fallen angle. This is because they two share the same character, quality, power and experience. While the three murders in the article are predetermined, their prototype is the Trinity because of both the role they plays and their duty in the novel. The third part analyzes the biblical images that appear in London Fields, which includes the images of God, Cross, Faith and so on, while these images are completely subverted and ironic. The fourth part macroscopically describes the perversion of all kinds of relationships, which includes the perversion of two genders, the abnormality of the relationship between two generations, the perversion of life and death and the perversion of good and evil. Through its characterization, images and description of perverted relationships, London Fields portrays a "doomsday" scene as the "Apocalypse" in the Bible and shows Amis’s deep concern and anxiety for the morality of contemporary British and Western society and his yearning and striving for redemption of the whole society.