| William Trevor, as one of the greatest short story masters in Ireland at present, is also a writer whose stories were the most often carried by New Yorker before 2012. He is often compared with Anton Chekhov for his writing skills in depicting the sadness and complex psychological changes of the obscure, which are also often described in his works. Therefore he is also called "the Irish Chekhov." Trevor has composed prolifically and his works includes 29 novels and 16 short story collections, and his works helped him win more than 10 important prizes in literature. His works has great impact on English literature and some of that has been introduced into China, including After Rain, Love and Summer and The Story of Lucy Gault.This thesis mainly employs C. G. Jung’s and Northrop Frye’s archetypal theories to analyze William Trevor’s Fools of Fortune with a deep exploration of the typical archetypes in order to reveal the profound meanings of the novel.This thesis will analyze the Eden archetype in Fools of Fortune, the quest motif and three archetypal persons. It tries to take a closer look at the Ireland in Trevor’s writings and explore the author’s thoughts on Irish cultural root and the relationship between Ireland and England.This thesis is divided into five chapters.The first is an introduction of the writer William Trevor, his life experiences, one of his main works, Fools of Fortune and Irish War of Independence and then the reasons of choosing this novel and how it could be analyzed from archetypal point of view.The second chapter introduced related critics at home and abroad and explains the definitions and features of archetypes, as well as the two great representative archetypal theorists and how does Frye build his theory on Frazer’s and Jung’s. Then it explains why this novel can be analyzed by their theories.The third chapter uses Frye’s theories to analyze the novel. It includes three parts, namely the Eden, the Quest Motif and three Archetypal characters in it, namely the Mother archetype, the Prophet archetype and The Fairy of the Nature Archetype. Also some images will be analyzed. Finally this chapter will analyze the structures of the story lines of four different characters and explains why their own type of story develops like the shift between four seasons.In the fourth chapter, this thesis connects the novel with Ireland. Through the experience of different characters and the history of Ireland, this chapter analyzes the connection between rebuilding Ireland and finding peace.The last chapter is the conclusion of the whole thesis, with the aims, findings, limitations and suggestions of this thesis. |
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