Archetypal Criticism On O. Henry's Short Stories

O. Henry (1862-1910)—pseudonym of William Sydney Porter, is one of most famous critical realistic novelists in America. He is known with Maupassant and Chekhov as the three greatest short story masters in the world and is hailed as the "Father of Modern American Short Story" by some critics. His humorous depiction, surprising denouement, themes of human world have been studied by critics and literature fans at home and abroad from the perspective of critical realism or structuralism. However, the systematic research of combining O. Henry's works with Holy Bible is few in number. This thesis will use Canadian literature critic Northrop Frye's archetypal criticism theory to analyze O. Henry's several short stories from characterization, theme and narrative structure. It is intended to explore biblical archetypes in O. Henry's works and help readers better understand O. Henry's religious thoughts and human concern.Archetype criticism is one of important literature genres which was popular in 1950s and 1960s. Its' main founder is Canadian critic Northrop Frye (1912-1991). In 1957, Frye published his masterpiece Anatomy of Criticism in which he elaborated mythos-archetypical criticism and laid the foundation of his fame in critics. He points out that all literary genres are initially derived from myths in which there are various forms and themes of offspring literature development. Frye regards the whole western literature history as a gradual process of displacements of archetypes. According to Frye, archetypes are independent stable structure units in literature, they occur repeatedly in literature works in the form of images, themes, characters, etc.Many short stories of O. Henry feature unimportant people who live at the bottom of the society mainly with the theme of people doing good deeds though the plots are different. It is not difficult to find out the archetypes of these characters under O. Henry's pen by careful study. Jim in The Gift of the Magi who is young and suffers a lot in his life embodies the passion of Jesus Christ. Raidler in the story Hygeia at the Solito could represent the charity of Jesus. The old artist Behrman in the Last Leaf epitomes the sacrifice of Jesus. From the marshal's words and acts in Hearts and Hands, we find the archetype of scapegoat. In the story of Roads of Destiny, three different roads lead to the same destination, presents us two relevant biblical themes—death and paradise lost. James in The Marionettes is a doctor meanwhile a thief, the narrative structure of his experience from degeneration to repentance then to redemption, is the typical Biblical U-shaped narration. From the title of the short story The Cop and the Anthem, we can find the element of the Bible, and O. Henry's appreciation of Christianity and his wishes that religion may save people could also be traced between the lines.This thesis uses Frye's archetypal criticism theory to read O. Henry's short stories. By analyzing O. Henry's short stories'characterization, theme, and narrative structure, we can draw a conclusion:O. Henry frequently uses biblical archetypes in his stories to create characters, express the themes of works and set up the narrative structure no matter what with consciousness or unconsciousness. It proves again the profound influence of Holy Bible on western literature. On the one hand, O. Henry eulogizes common people's truthfulness, kindheartedness and beauty; and on the other, O. Henry also delivers his pessimism and disappointment to the realistic world he is familiar with. He has such a plaint in the story The Gift of The Magi: "life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating." His frequent use biblical archetypes in his short stories is because O. Henry sees the inequality of the society, the injustice of the law, but he does not find the most effective solution to these social problems. He has to believe the power of religion, the infectivity of Christianity which is due to the boundedness of his life background, time and class he belongs to.