The Archetypes of the Characters in The Scarlet Letter

Nathaniel Hawthorne and his works are deeply influenced by the religion and the Holy Bible.It has many corresponding relationships between the Biblical allusions and the characters,plot and theme in the Scarlet Letter.Hawthorne gave the novel symbolic characters in order to give this symbolism novel a deeper connotation,by borrowing quite a lot of the Biblical allusions.The Scarlet Letter established Hawthorne as the most important 19 th century romantic novelist in the United States.This paper attempts to analyze the characteristics and the life experience of the figures in the novel,such as Hester Prynne,Chillingworth,Dimmesdale and Pearl by using the archetypal criticism.The paper also will compare the novel to the Holy Bible so that we can find the archetypes of the Holy Bible hidden in the Scarlet Letter.