The Understanding Of Cultural Image Prototype Of "scapegoat" Reads In The Western Literature

In the early20th century, Carl G. Jung proposed "prototype" theory, on the base ofwhich Canadian scholar Northrop Frye published his classical work Anatomy of Criticism in1957. The birth of this book marked that "prototype criticism" was treated as a brand-newform and a distinguished one in western literary field, which occupied an important stance."Scapegoat" talked about by this text is exactly such a standard pattern. This thesis made adetailed analysis of the image of "scapegoat" and had a deep understanding on the culturalmeaning and significance from the perspective of prototype criticism, respectively from theaspects of origins, evolvement, form, acceptance and cultural psychology etc.The foreword of this thesis made a basic recapitulation about the theory of prototype andthe image of scapegoat, meanwhile pointed out the link between them. Besides, this prefacepointed out the nature of scapegoat was a categorized type and combine the criticism theoryand object together from the perspective of Northrop Frye’s myth angle.Chapter one provided an introduction to the origin of the image of scapegoat, whichincluded the connotation of the image of scapegoat, the basic elements, the form as well as thetext analysis so as to have a general master of the image of scapegoat.Chapter two addressed the cultural psychologist foundation of the image of scapegoat.This thesis pointed out the forming of "scapegoat" image, which was from the basic culturalpsychology essentially. And in the prototype psychology of Carl G. Jung, it was presented"collective unconscious" and "individual unconscious".Chapter three made an investigation on the literature beauty function of the image ofscapegoat. From the acceptable meaning, the image of scapegoat itself embodied two mainliterary beauty functions, one is "purify" and the other is "redeem".In the conclusion, this thesis point out that though the theory of various modernism andpost-modernism took "scapegoat" into analysis after entering20th century, withoutconcerning humanities, any analysis actually can not availably get involved in the image of"scapegoat" and its background. Since the1920s, there were a growing number ofdescriptions on the prototype the image of "scapegoat" as well as more and more peopleaccepted the concepts of "purify" and "redeem". At the same time, this thesis also points outthat compared with western literature, there are also a great deal of literature image of"scapegoat" in the eastern literature. Therefore,"scapegoat" is undoubtedly an image of theabyss of time all over the world.