| This thesis attempts to use the archetypal theories to analyze the archetypes on Christian culture in The Pilgrim's Progress, which covers its characters, structures, plots and major theme .The thesis is composed of five chapters .The first chapter introduces John Bunyan's life career and his masterpiece, The Pilgrim's progress .It gives a brief explanation on the critical point of view of this thesis, Northrop Frye's archetypal criticism, so as to clarify the importance and basis of the study of the archetypal qualities in The Pilgrim's Progress.The second chapter is an analysis on the images of archetypal characters in the work from two aspects. On one hand , the protagonists .Christian and Faithful adopt the archetypes of saint Job and Stephen separately .On the other hand, the serial antagonists such as Mr.Worldly-wiseman, Talkative , Apollyon and so on are no doubt the deceitful and vicious Satan. By the analysis of archetypal Job, we can see Bunyan intensifies Christian's persevering and steadfast spirit for realizing his salvation. Through the archetypal analysis on Faithful, Bunyan successfully highlights the Christian complex of Faithful, that is he is willing to be persecuted even to be martyrized for the righteousness. The archetypes of Satan respectively symbolize all kinds of enemies that Christian confronts in the course of his belief. The employment of the archetypal Satan not only contributes to expose the deceitful and evil nature of Christian's enemies, but also further contrasts Christian's faithful and indomitable spirit, because he is bravely fighting with his enemies and difficulties in order to realize his ideal of entering the heavenly kingdom.The third chapter analyzes the archetypal structures and plots from the Bible in The Pilgrim's Progress. According to Frye's archetypal theories, the narrative structure of the whole Bible is a rough U-Shaped structure, which follows the typical pattern: paradise, committing the original sin, suffering, repentance, salvation. Bible also can be regarded as a great comedy composed with a series of tragedies, there are many small U-shaped structures in a big U-shaped one .In The Pilgrim's Progress, Bunyan also adopts this kind of typical U-Shaped pattern. Like the Israelites, Christian also experiences "chosen" "wondering", and eventually "getting the Promised Land". In the course of Christian's pilgrimage, he confronts temptations, difficulties and perils over and over again, he is once weak for taking Satan's tricks, even goes astray from the true highway, but he insists on marching forward his way to the Celestial City by obtaining God's mercy and rescue. He eventually arrives at God's Promised Land -the Celestial City. In the plot, Bunyan mainly adopts the biblical plot of the conflicts between the virtuous and the evil, and transforms the conflicts into two kinds: the obvious conflicts between Christian and the outside world and the conflicts between Christian and the Self.The fourth chapter interprets the main archetypal theme in The Pilgrim's Progress, which is the saints' perseverance. The reason why saints are so brave and persevering on their way tothe Celestial City, just because their unswerving and loyal love to God and their never ending desire for the eternal kingdom—heaven.The fifth chapter is the conclusion of the thesis. Bunyan's employment of the archetypes in The Pilgrim's Progress is ingenious and exquisite. They are not only the most important creative resource of the work, but also constitute an integral part of the eternal artistic brilliance of the work. By making full use of the archetypes, Bunyan not only effectively conveys his original creative intention, deepens the cultural connotation on Christianity, but also greatly intensifies the profundity and artistic quality. Just owing to the consummate employment of these archetypes, The Pilgrim's Progress becomes an evergreen "tree of life" in British literature, even the world literature;it remains its everlasting position in the literary world.
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