1. Introduction

1.1. Research background

Nathaniel Hawthorne plays an inestimable role in the literary world, he is lauded as one of the most influential romanticists in the 19^th century, as well as the pioneer of psychological novel in American Romanticism. He was born in a declining family with long Puritan tradition, thus shaping him into a writer whose mind is full of contradictions, on one hand, he criticized religious fanaticism and church hypocrisy, while on the other hand, he was fettered by the tradition and recognized the world with Calvinistic concept of good and evil.

Hawthorne#8217;s literary creation, to a large extent, is derived from his family tradition, thus making it clear that almost every piece of his novel contains the theme of "sin", "evil" and "redemption", while The Scarlet Letter is one of the typical representatives. As an incarnation of his literary ideology and writing techniques, The Scarlet Letter enjoys highest reputation in his literary career, and has striking repercussions for the American literature. It has aroused much attention and got academic criticism both at home and abroad ever since its publication. As a whole, the novel explores the various layers of moral philosophy, the evil and human nature against the background of the colonial life in New England.

2. Literature review

2.1 Previous studies on The Scarlet Letter

After its publication, The Scarlet Letter enjoys a variety of literary criticism from an army of critics and scholars both at home and abroad.

Since the twentieth century, Hawthorne and his works, especially The Scarlet Letter have arrested a high degree of attention in western country. Many critics set out to review and interpret The Scarlet Letter from different aspects. Most of the analyses are about the imagery and metaphor, one classical case is how they explicate the underlying meanings of the letter A, Pearl and the forest, for example, they hold that the letter ”A” is a symbol of sin, then becomes the embodiment of the ability. Some reviewers taking another method to reveal Hawthorne#8217;s paradoxical and ambivalent religious belief that reflected in the novel, for instance, Richard H. Fogle#8217;s typical study, Hawthorne#8217;s Fiction: The Light and the Dark, well illustrates the equivocalness of Hawthorn#8217;s inner world by following the connection between the light and the dark. In addition, critics utilize the theory of psychoanalytical criticism to study Hawthorne, they are inclined to study Hawthorne from two special aspects, first, to analyze the inner world of the protagonist by using Freudian terms such as ego, id and superego; second, Frederick Crews points out a view which makes Hawthorne more contemporary: ”a proto - psychoanalytic stance towards his characters#8217; obsessions”. In his book The Sins of the Fathers: Hawthorne#8217;s Psychological Themes, Crews reaches a conclusion that Hawthorne#8217;s characterization foresees the findings of Freudian psychoanalysis. In Re-reading The Letter: Hawthorne, the Fetish, and the Romance, Joanne Feit Diehl indicates that the novel, to a large extent, shows Hawthorne#8217;s oedipal feelings. Darrel Abel is a critic who advocates the combination of formalist attention with the artistic structure, Abel#8217;s work, The Moral Picturesque, fully exhibits the prolonged conflicts in The Scarlet Letter. Some scholars analyze The Scarlet Letter based on the theory of feminism, Mary Suzanne, in her study, Gender and the Writer#8217;s Imagination, believes that Hester is the typical representative of feminism, who stands out to break the shackle of the old tradition , but also holds that Hester is filled with ambivalence in his mind.

In China, since the 1950s, when the first translated version was published, Chinese scholars have become much more familiar with The Scarlet Letter and have begun to make various comments on it. Many scholars study this novel through the view of symbolism, believing that the whole article contains rich symbolic significance, such as the image of the prison, rose and the scarlet letter A. Jin xiaolin(2004) analyzes the ambiguous, systematic and metaphorical trait of the symbolism used in the novel. Some critics interpret The Scarlet Letter on a viewpoint of feminist criticism. Ji zheng and Meng xueqing point out that Hawthorne advocates the tradition of the male dominated society through presenting Prynne#8217;s harsh experience after committing adultery with Dimmesdale. While certain scholars analyze the work from the prospective of the post-structuralism, including Zhang hairong, he explicates Pearl#8217;s mental process by linking Freud#8217;s and Lacan#8217;s theory. Archetypal criticism also involved in the study of The Scarlet Letter, for instance, based on Carl Jung#8217;s archetypal theory, Zhao wen qiong(2011) deems that Prynne is the archetypes of Eve and Dimmesdale is the embodiment of Adam in the Bible, which foreshadows their future.

Through the above depiction, we can easily find out that various perspectives have been employed in the study of The Scarlet Letter, which provides us with many fine aspects to appreciate the novel. Nevertheless, quite a few of critics have ever done special research on The Scarlet Letter from the angle of the archetypal criticism. Therefore, this paper is going to make a detailed analysis of the biblical archetypes that wrapped in the novel, which endeavors to offer a new and comprehensive view for readers to enjoy the masterpiece.