英语本科毕业论文-An Analysis of Mark Twain’s Writing Techniques in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.doc

美国的幽默大师和现实主义作家马克土温,被看作一位世界文学巨匠。他的幽默对其后辈文人产生了巨大的影响.批评家对此亦高度重视并就此提出了不同的阐释.他创作了闻名世界的儿童著作汤姆索亚历险记，从本书中读者们可以感受到马克吐温的生活经历。除了汤姆索亚历险记，他还创作了许多名著深受全世界读者的喜爱，直到今天，全世界的人任在读他的作品。本文介绍了一些促成马克吐温成功的写作特点如幽默、讽刺、口语化的语言，不同修辞手法以及他文中的一些例句。本文由四部分组成。正文的第一部分讲述了马克吐温的生活经历与其作品汤姆索亚历险记。紧接着的部分，也就是本文的主题，详细分析了马克吐温应用于其作品的写作手法如幽默，讽刺等。这一部分详细陈述了马克吐温是如何利用这些写作手法为读者们创造出生动的形象并通过文中的一些例句来展示他达到了怎样的效果。最后一个部分是对马克吐温的成就和辉煌的一个总结。马克吐温用生动形象的文字把包含他真实感情的真实的世界展现给了他的读者们。An Analysis of Mark Twains Writing Techniques in The Adventures of Tom SawyerI. IntroductionMost of Mark Twains works are directed against the American society. He is good at using extreme technique, enlarge the ugly phenomenon to the readers, let them find out what is right, what is wrong by themselves. For this reason, Mark Twain has a lot of audiences in the whole world. His works have practical significances, deserving to analyze. This thesis uses several points to expound Mark Twains writing style. His humorous style is different from that of other authors. Mark Twains humor is remarkable, it is fun to read Twain at first, for most of his works tend to be funny, containing some practical jokes, comic details, witty remarks and so on, and some of them are actually tall tales. Today, most of the authors still choose Mark Twains humorous style as the main technique in their literary works, because it is the best weapon to attack the darkness, could show the authors ideas better than any other ways. . Mark Twain and The Adventure of Tom SawyerAs an outstanding writer, humorist, critic Mark Twain is loved by people all around the world. His works had been translated into several other languages across the universe. The Adventure of Tom Sawyer is one of his most successful juvenile works which is still a bestseller today. The book was written partly based on Twains own life experience. So when the readers are reading through the book, they could imagine a vivid image of young Mark Twain.2.1 Mark Twains Life ExperienceMark Twain (pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, 1835-1910), was an American writer, journalist and humorist, who won a worldwide audience for his stories of the youthful adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.Clemens was born on November 30, 1835 in Florida, Missouri, of a Virginian family. He was brought up in Hannibal, Missouri. The life of which contributed to the construction of the fictional town of St. Petersburg in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. After his fathers death in 1847, he was apprenticed to a printer and wrote for his brothers newspaper. And later He worked as a licensed Mississippi river-boat pilot, which provided him with sufficient materials for him and inspired him to the creation of many great works. The Civil War put an end to the steamboat traffic and Clemens moved to Virginia City, where he edited the Territorial Enterprise. On February 3, 1863, Mark Twain was born when Clemens signed a humorous travel account with that pseudonym.In 1864 Twain left for California, and worked in San Francisco as a journalist. There he got his first success as a writer for his humorous tall tale. He visited Hawaii as a correspondent for The Sacramento Union, publishing letters on his trip and giving lectures. Then He set out on a world tour, traveling in France and Italy. His travelogue was recorded in 1869 in The Innocents Abroad, which gained him wide popularity, and poked fun at both American and European prejudices and manners.The success as a writer gave Twain enough financial security to marry Olivia Langdon in 1870 whom Twain claimed to have fallen in love at first sight . The next year, they moved to Hartford. Twain continued to give lecture in the United States and worked as an editor and writer in the Buffalo Express. Between 1876 and 1884 he published several masterpieces, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1881) and The Prince And The Pauper (1881). Life On The Mississippi appeared in 1883 and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 1884.Twain made a substantial amount of money through his writing, but he lost a great deal through investments, mostly in new inventions and technology. In the 1890s Twain lost most of his earnings in financial speculations and in the failure of his own publishing firm. To recover from the bankruptcy, he started a world lecture tour, during which one of his daughters died. Twain toured New Zealand, Australia, India, and South Africa. He wrote such books as The Tragedy Of Puddhead Wilson (1884), Personal Recollections Of Joan Of Arc (1885), A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court (1889) and the travelogue Following The Equator (1897). During his long writing career, Twain also produced a considerable number of essays. “Advice to youth” and “Courage”Misery and sufferings beat the man who makes the world laugh. The death of his wife and his second daughter darkened the authors later years, which is seen in his posthumously published autobiography (1924). Twain died on April 21, 1910. His funeral was at the Old Brick Presbyterian Church in New York. He is buried in his wifes family plot at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York. His grave is marked by a 12-foot (i.e., two fathoms, or mark twain) monument. 2.2 A Brief Introduction of The Adventures of Tom SawyerThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer is a literary masterpieces, written in 1876 is a childs adventure story by the famous author Mark Twain. Tom Sawyer is a mischievous young boy who lives in the small town on the Mississippi River called St. Petersburg. Tom Sawyer is saucy and naturally show-off, who likes to show his authority over the other boys. He is a 13 years old boy who was born in a town on the Mississippi River, where he and Huck-his best friend, grew up. Tom is intended to represent the carefree and wonderful world of boyhood in the antebellum era. The story line is simple, the book reads like a biography or a memoir of a summer in Tom Sawyers life. Tom Sawyer seems to be the precursor of and the template for misfit kids such as Dennis the Menace, Malcolm in the Middle, and Calvin and Hobbs. What makes this story great is that Tom Sawyer represents everything that is great about childhood. The book is filled with Toms adventures playing pirates and war with his friend Joe Harper. Tom has a trusted friend, Huck Finn, who few of the adults approve of. The book is filled with ideas of how the world works, such as how pirates and robbers work, that are so innocent, they could only come from a child. It is a story filled with action, adventure, ingenious ideas, love, and schoolyard politics. The whole story is seemingly a complication of what people did or wish they did during their childhood. One of Americas best-loved tales, Tom Sawyer has a double appeal. First, it appeals to the young adolescent as the exciting adventures of a typical boy during the mid-nineteenth century, adventures that are still intriguing and delightful because they appeal to the basic instincts of nearly all young people, regardless of time or culture. Second, the novel appeals to the adult reader who looks back on his or her own childhood with fond reminiscences. Thus, the novel is a combination of the past and the present, of the well-remembered events from childhood told in such a way as to evoke remembrances in the adult mind.The tale is very dramatically wrought, and the subordinate characters are treated with the same graphic force that sets Tom alive before us. The worthless vagabond, Huck Finn, is entirely delightful throughout, and in his promised reform his identity is respected: he will lead a decent life in order that he may one day be thought worthy to become a member of that gang of robbers which Tom is to organize. Toms aunt is excellent, with her kind hearts sorrow and secret pride in Tom; and so is his sister Mary, one of those good girls who are born to usefulness and charity and forbearance and unvarying rectitude. Many village people and local notables are introduced in well-conceived character; the whole little town lives in the readers sense, with its religiousness, its lawlessness, its droll social distinctions, its civilization qualified by its slave-holding, and its traditions of the wilder West which has passed away. The picture will be instructive to those who have fancied the whole Southwest a sort of vast Pike County, and have not conceived of a sober and serious and orderly contrast to the sort of life that has come to represent the Southwest in literature.Although Tom Sawyer is set in a small town along the western frontier on the banks of the legendary Mississippi River sometime during the 1840s, readers from all parts of the world respond to the various adventures experienced by Tom and his band of friends. The appeal of the novel lies mostly in Twains ability to capture-or recapture-universal experiences and dreams and fears of childhood. Writing Techniques Reflected in the WorkWhatever Mark Twain writes is pretty sure of an eager popular recognition. And it is due to him to say that he finds his readers and admirers all around the world. His application of humor, satire and colloquial language to his work bestowed him the most powerful weapon to win him the outstanding status in history of literature.3.1 HumorThe word “Humor” in English originated from ancient Latin, Liquid or Fluid , which originally refers to one of the four humors (i.e., blood, mucus, bile, depression fluid) that play a decisive role in human nature and health. It was later extended to the meaning of todays humor. Humor is one of the most complex mechanisms of human language. According to their different life experiences, different social context, different writing style, writers defers greatly in their way of expression. Some express their meaning directly; some others are subtle and indirect in the expression of their thoughts and feelings. Humor is always showed in the indirect way.Humor is among the most important ingredients that make satire interesting and attractive. But humor is certainly multifaceted. It may be aggressive and derisive, it can be playful or intelligent, it can even be serious as satire; it cannot be false.Humor cannot desert truth. Mark Twain, who was extremely gifted in humor, used his talent in The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, which has become American humors “masterpiece as well as MarkThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer is the first novel which Mark Twain wrote independently. In this novel, Mark Twain create a vivid, delicate and lovely boy Tom and a colorful world which belong to him in the third person with a friendly easy-going tone. On the humorous and clever use of irony, the author criticized the current social vulgar, social institutions, and all kinds of people in society. Mark Twain combines o the real material and the humor together to form his own unique writing style which is frequently applied to his work. Mr. Lu said: The irony from life is the real irony.” Only when one is involved in the real life could one grasp the surprise hiding in the common social phenomena could we discover and create good humor.So Life is the source of humor, and humor could only be reflected fully by life.Mark Twains humor is the case. Mark Twain inherited the 19th century humorous writing styles of the early American western literature of popularity. Besides, because of Mark Twain own writing features, .He used expressive words so that the characters in his work looks vivid. The carefully used words give the simple images a special effect. He perfectly combined the realism and humor together criticizes the dark society. His doesnt not only create a unique humorous writing style, but also influence many American artists and authors.3.2 SatireSatire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement. Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its greater purpose is often constructive social criticism, using wit as a weapon.A common feature of satire is strong irony or sarcasmin satire, irony is militant2but parody, burlesque, exaggeration, juxtaposition, comparison, analogy, and double entendre are all frequently used in satirical speech and writing. This militant irony or sarcasm often professes to approve (or at least accept as natural) the very things the satirist wishes to attack.In the Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Twain does not confine himself to telling a simple childrens story. He is, as always, the satirist and commentator on the foibles of human nature. As the authorial commentator, Twain often steps in and comments on the absurdity of human nature. In Tom Sawyer, he is content with mild admonitions about the human race. For example, after Tom has tricked the other boys into painting the fence for him, the voice of Twain, the author, points out the gullibility of man:”than in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to attain.” There are stronger satires. Twain is constantly satirizing the hypocrisy found in many religious observances. For example, in the Sunday school episode, there are aspects of religion satirized, as Twain points out that one boy had memorized so many verses of the Bible so as to win prizesmore Bibles elegantly illustratedthat “the strain upon his mental faculties was too great, and he was little better than an idiot from that day forward.”The adults reaction to Injun Joe and his malevolence is a typical Twain commentary on society; the adults create petitions to free Joe who has already killed, so it was believed, five” citizens of the village, but what of that? If he had been Satan himself there would have been plenty of weaklings ready to scribble their names to a pardon petition, and drip a tear on it from their permanently impaired and leaky waterworks.”Twain criticizes the adult attitudes and behaviors throughout the novel. That is part of the conflict: the maturation of a youth into adulthood conflicting with the disapproval of the adult behaviors that exist. It is this double vision that raises the novel above the level of a boys adventure story.3.3 Colloquial LanguageAnother factor that made Mark Twain unique is his magic power with language, his use of colloquial language. “In his hands, comic jargon and dialect became a finished literary weapon, unemphatic, visual, and deceptively simple, sounding like speech and yet not quite the same”. At that time, Mark Twain adopts the American colloquial languages, hammering it into shape again and again. His words are vivid, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simple, even ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken language. And Mark Twain skillfully used the colloquialism to cast his protagonists in their everyday life. Whats more, his characters, confined to a particular region and to a particular historical moment, speak with a strong accent, which is true of his local colorism. Besides, different characters from different literary or cultural backgrounds talk differently, as is the case with Tom. Indeed, with his great master and effective use of vernacular, Mark Twain has made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of the country. His style of language was later taken up by his descendants, Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway, and influenced generations of letters. 3.3.1 Local ColorLocal color as a trend first made its presence in the late 1860s and early seventies. It was the outgrowth of historical and aesthetic forces that been gathering energy since early nineteenth century. Since then local color became dominate in American Literature. One of the most important writing features of Mark Twain is the use of Local colorism. Twain refers to the elements, which characterize a local culture, elements such as speech, customs, and also a particular place as local colorism. Local colorists concerned themselves with presenting and interpreting the local character of their regions. They tended to identify and glorify, but they never forgot to keep an eye on the truthful color of local life. Twain depicted social life through descriptions of local places and people he knew best and believed that “the most valuable capital, or culture, or education usable in the building of novels is personal experience.” Mark twain preferred to respect social life through portraits of local places which he knew best and drew heavily from his own rich fund of knowledge of people and places with the full depiction of the customs, dialects, sights, smell and sounds of regional America. Mark Twain often used local color to create realistic characters and settings within his writings. The special accent and the way of speaking his characters give the readers the feeling that they are shown a respectable, knowing person. It presented a vivid and real scene to the readers when they are reading through his works.3.3.2 Vernacular LanguageMark Twain enriches the heritage of American literature by his style of writing in the vernacular, which means to write the way that people think and speak. The vernacular portrays the word in the purest sense of its original meaning. The vernacular symbolizes American writing because nobody else on earth would talk in that way besides the early American settlers. This style is done by writing without worrying about spelling or context, and rather just writing the way that the speech sounds. This style of writing is uniquely American, because the famous European authors did not write that way since the people of Europe didnt speak that way. Europeans had never spoken like this or heard of it befor