On The Mythological Archetype Of Foster's "The Longest Journey"

E.M.Forster is a well-known modern British novelist and literary critic in the20 th century.He is as famous as Virginia Woolf and D.H.Lawrence.He wrote five novels all his life.The Longest Journey published in 1907 is the least popular one,but it is his favorite novel.There are many mythological archetypes full of symbolic and metaphorical meanings in novel narration.This paper interprets the novel from the perspective of mythological archetypal criticism,analyses the archetypal characters,archetypal images and archetypal motifs,and explores the deep implications hidden behind the mythological archetypes.The text is divided into three chapters.Chapter one analyses the archetypal characters in the novel.The chapter is divided into three sections.The first section interprets the cultural connotation of Rickie Elliot as the embodiment of Hephaestus' New Era.Ricky,as a typical figure in the transitional period of British society,reflects the state of life in which people lost themselves,divorced from nature,spiritual distress and physical and mental illness.The second section traces Stephen Wonham's mythological archetype and explores his realistic meaning.Stephen is the incarnation of Pan and the son of nature in the novel,with vigorous primitive vitality.He symbolizes the harmony between man and nature.The third section analyses Stewart Ansell's mythological prototype,and explores the role and symbolic significance of Ansell as a prophet and philosopher in the novel.As the incarnation of Apollo,Ansell is not only the key figure to promote plot development and character growth,but also the representative of the rational spirit of independent thinking and pursuing truth.Chapter two,archetypal imagery: discuss the symbolic and metaphorical functions of mythical imagery.Water prototype,tree prototype and circle prototype are typical and recurring images in mythology.They contain complex and profound cultural connotations and symbolic.The first section explores the deep textual significance of water and its variants,rain,rivers and oceans,from the connotations of life and tolerance,purification and rebirth of the water image in the Bible.The secondsection shows the symbolic meaning of the tree image in the novel according to the prototype of the tree of life and the tree of wisdom in the Bible.The third section elaborates the metaphorical functions of the "circle" and its variants,"circle schematic map" ? "Rings" and the novel's circular narrative framework,with the help of the archetypal meaning of the circle image.Chapter three is Prototype motif.On the basis of further study of the displacement and deformation of death motif and resurrection motif in the novel,this chapter discusses the contemporary value transformation of myth motif.This chapter is divided into two sections.The first section analyses the death implications of six characters and explains their symbolic meanings.However,death is the end and the beginning.The second discusses the revival of Ricky's and his mother's spirit and shows its rich value connotation.Forster,based on the British society in the transitional period,put on the contemporary clothes for the prototype motif,surmounted the obstacles of reality,and drew people's attention back to the life state at the beginning of the world,in order to criticize the current situation of people's spiritual distress,emotional alienation and interpersonal crisis.He wants to make readers get spiritual purification and sublimation in the process of returning to tradition and nature,pursue higher spiritual needs,and achieve harmony between man and nature,man and man,man and society.