| The Scarlet Letter Trilogy is accomplished by John Updike (1932~2009), one ofAmerica’s most important and prolific contemporary writers, which consists of A Month ofSundays (1975), Roger’s Version (1986) and S.(1988). In these three novels, each toldfrom the perspective of a contemporary version of one of Hawthorne’s three protagonistsin The Scarlet Letter (1850), Updike expanded, satirized and rewrote Hawthorne’s text,creating his own Scarlet Letter Trilogy. Updike’s conscious and explicit intertextualcreation of the three novels grants one of the most prominent features of the Trilogy, itsintertextual dialogue with Hawthorne’s classic, which also directs the study of this thesis toa critical approach from the perspective of intertextuality.The whole thesis first offers a brief description regarding Updike’s Trilogy andKristeva’s intertextual theories to be followed throughout this study, followed by aliterature review of John Updike’s studies home and abroad. It is then devoted to theanalysis of the intertextual imitation concerning characters. Inspired by the archetypalprojections in the myth of Eden, this thesis respectively studies the myth and Hawthorn’sclassic for prototypes. Then it goes on to reveal the prototypal imitations and derivation ofthe triangle lovers in Updike’s Trilogy. It also focuses on the inertextual transformation ofsymbols, disclosing Updike’s transformative employment of object and setting symbols,color symbols and alphabetic letter symbols. In addition, this thesis investigates theintertextual subversion of themes. It first discloses the common themes shared by bothwriters in their works, and then moves to the specific discussion of Updike’s differentattitudes towards the same common issues, including sex, religion and women liberation.Through the analysis above, this thesis points out the characteristics of Updike’s rewritingand gives some inspirations for further studies on the Trilogy from other aspects. |
PDF Full Text Request