An Analysis on The Chrysanthemums based on the Perspective of Archetypal Criticism

Abstract

The Chrysanthemums is a short story written by John Steinbeck, a modern American writer. The short story reveals the heroine’s inner pain and spiritual pursuit by taking the chrysanthemums as a central image and clue. The paper aims to analyze the short story based on the perspective of archetypal criticism. It mainly includes three parts: the first one is about archetypes of images and characters, the second part is to analyze the archetype of motif, and the third part is about the archetype of narrative structure.