Biblical origin and echoes: modern American literature and Biblical archetypes

Abstract

The Bible has a great influence on western literature, especially American Literature. Besides the historical reason, the rich literary contents in the Bible determine its great influence on American literature. By comparing American literature to the Bible as literature and the Christian thoughts, through examining American literary history and some of its representative works in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, especially the novels of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville and William Faulkner, the author observes the explicit Biblical origin and echoes in Modern American literature: the biblical motifs and characters, its narrative structure, the biblical images and symbols became archetypal patterns, and biblical allusions were even used as allegorical tools to satirize the society in many literary works