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内蒙古农业大学本科毕业论文The Features of O Henrys Short StoriesBy Wang HuiUnder the Supervision ofLecturer Liu BotaoForeign Languages CollegeofInner Mongolia Agricultural UniversityJune 201015The Features of O Henrys Short StoriesAbstract O Henry is one of the greatest short stories writers in the world, and enjoys equal status with Chekhov and Maupassant. His writing style is appreciated by many people, especially for twist plot and surprising ending. In language, O Henry uses many rhetoric tactics to achieve the effort of making the stories more vivid and more humorous, like irony. The characters in his short stories are from all the classes of society, rich and poor, evil and virtuous. He gains many writing material from his abundant life experiences. Each of his stories is the microcosm of society at that time. So his stories are considered as “the encyclopedia of American life”. In his short stories, O Henry always sympathizes with the poor, criticizes and satirizes the capitalists. In the thesis, the features of O Henrys short story, namely, surprising ending, humor, irony, and unique character portraying art are analyzed respectively. Key Words: O Henry, short stories, surprising ending, humor, irony, unique character portraying art欧亨利短篇小说的写作特点中文摘要欧亨利是世界上最伟大的短篇小说家之一，享有与柴可夫斯基，莫泊桑同等的地位。他的写作风格受众人青睐，尤其是以屈折的情节和出人意料的结尾闻名。在语言上，欧.亨利使用多种多样的修辞手法来让故事达到生动活泼，幽默风趣的效果，如反讽。在他短篇小说了，人物都是来自各个阶层的人，有穷也有富，有邪恶也有善良的。他如此多的写作素材多归功于他丰富的生活经历。他的每个故事都是当时社会的一个缩影。因此，他的故事被人称作为“美国生活的百全科书”。在欧亨利小说里，他常常同情穷苦老百姓而批判讽刺资本家。本文主要对欧亨利的短篇小说特点进行了分析，即出奇制胜的结尾，幽默，反讽，以及人物刻画技巧。关键字：欧亨利，短篇小说，出奇制胜的结尾，幽默，反讽，人物刻画技巧 ContentsChapter 1 Introduction.11.1 Background.11.2 Previous Studies of O Henrys Works.1Chapter 2 The Life of O Henry and His Literature Achievements32.1 O Henrys Personal Information.32.2 O Henrys Works.4Chapter 3 The Features of O Henrys Works.5 3.1 Surprising ending5 3.2 Humor.6 3.2.1 Universal Humor.6 3.2.2 Culture Humor7 3.2.3 Linguistic Humor.8 At the Lexical Level.8 At the Syntactic Level.9 3.3 Irony.10 3.4 The Unique Character Portraying Art.11 3.4.1 Several Typical Characters in His Works.113.4.2 The Unique character Portraying Art Relating to His Experience.12Chapter4. Conclusion.13Bibliography14Acknowledgements.15Chapter 1 Introduction 1.1 BackgroundO Henry, one of the three most famous short story writers in the world, enjoys the equal status with Chekhov and Maupassant. His stories are famous for their unexpected ending, vivid imaginations coupled with keen observations, as well as exquisite conception. In order to carry forward the fine tradition of O Henrys works, the O Henry Memorial Award has been presented since 1918 for the best publisher each year.Many critics in America and other countries comment on O Henry and his works with respect to his biography, the ingenious arrangement of his works, the typical characters and plots, and the critical implication of his works, to name but a few. Critics often regard him as a writer who puts moral judgment and social criticism into his unique style with humor, satire, burlesque and obvious comic inclinations. 1.2 Previous Studies of O Henrys WorksRegarded as a master of short stories, O Henry arouses great interest from critics ten years after his death. The famous critic Stephen Leacock says in the preface of O Henrys The Voice of the City (1908) that “The time is coming, lets hope, when the whole English-speaking world will recognize in O Henry one of the greatest masters of modern fiction” (O Henry, 2004). He believes that O Henry owns the technique of Maupassant, but exceeds Maupassant in humor. Either at home or abroad, critics comment on O Henry and his works mainly with respect to the themes of humanity, vivid plots, frequent, coincidences, surprising ending and humorous language. Henry James Forman concerns mainly on the humanity themes of O Henrys works: “Gifted as he is with a flashing wit, abundant humor, and quick observation, no subject has terrors for him. If it be too much to say, in the old phrase, that nothing human is alien to him, at least the larger part of humanity is his domain” (Current-Garcia,1993:158-159).St. John Adcock has more interest in O Henrys language. He presents his opinion in “O Henry: An English View” (1917):He has none of the conscious stylists elaborate little tricks with words, for he is a master of language and not its slaveHe seems to go as he pleases, writing apparently just whatever words happen to be in the ink, yet all the while he is getting hold of his readers interest; subtly shaping his narrative with a story-tellers unerring instinct, generally allowing you no glimpse of its culminating point until you are righton it. (Adcock,1917:202-203)In China, the only monographic book on O Henry is Ruan Wenlings Going in a Mazethe Artistic World in O Henry (1997). It focuses on three research aspects of the writer, the works and the art. Professor Ruan introduces O Henrys life thoroughly, comments most of O Henrys works creatively, and makes it a valuable book for research into O Henry and his works. Moreover, there are several master theses and around one hundred articles published in periodicals. Similarly, most of these theses and articles limit their discussions to the humanity themes, flexible plot arrangements and humorous language, which is called “O Henrys Technique”. However, what will be presented in this thesis are the features in O Henrys short stories, which have ever been discussed scarcely.In the thesis, I will divide four parts to analyze the features of O Henrys short story, namely, surprising ending, humor, irony, and unique character portraying art. Chapter 2 The Life of O Henry and His Literature Achievements2.1 O Henrys Personal Information William Sidney Porter, whose pen name was O Henry, was born in Greenboro, North Carolina, in 1862. His father, Algernon Sydney Porter was a doctor and an editor, and his mother sometimes wrote poetry. When William was three, his mother died, and he was raise by his parental grandmother and paternal aunt. William was an avid reader, but at the age of fifteen he left school, and then worked in a drug store and on a Texas ranch. In Houston, he had a number of jobs, including that of bank clerk. After moving in 1882 to Texas, he worked on a ranch in LaSalle County for two years. In 1887 he married Athol Estes Roach; they had one daughter and one son. In 1894 William Sidney Porter started a humorous weekly The Rolling Stone. It was at this time that he began heavy drinking. When the weekly failed, he joined the Houston Post as a reporter and columnist. In 1896 O Henry was charged with embezzling funds from the First National Bank of Austin, Texas, where he had worked from 1891 to 1894. The amount of money was small and might have been an accounting error. However he chose to flee to Honduras rather than stand trail. Learning that his wife was dying, he returned to Texas in 1897 and, after her death, turned himself in to authorities. He served three years of a five-year sentence at the federal penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. While being tortured and suffering a lot, he became a pharmacist to the prison which enabled him to write stories based on the life he had experienced in Texas and elsewhere. It was the penitentiary ordeal that changed him from William Porter to O Henry, from a newspaper columnist to a mature writer. Upon his release in 1901, he settled in New York and began writing full time. His life in the previous years granted him new sensations and adventures, many of which were transformed into more than 140 stories. On the other hand, he would suffer intensely from loneliness and insecurity, while striving in vain to elude the shadow of his past. He was only forty-eight when he died and was at the peak of his career.2.2 O Henrys worksIn his stories he made substantial use of his knowledge of Texas, Central America, and life in prison. He also became fascinated by New York street life, which provided a setting for many of his later stories. During the last ten years of his life, O Henry became one of the most popular writers in America, publishing over 500 short stories in dozens of widely read periodicals. His first collection work, Cabbages and Kings (1904) is a series or South American tales linked together by a loose plot construction. The charactersAmericans, revolutionist, patriots, and even the president of a mythical republic, belong to vaudeville or the comic opera. With The four Million (1906) O Henry produced his first book of New York stories, some of which, such as “The Gift of Magi,” “The Skylight Room,” “The Cop and the Anthem,” “Springtime a la Carte,” and “The Furnished Room” were hardly to be surpassed. The book had a fantastic success, and in 1907 The Trimmed Lamp gave the reading public second collection of New York stories. O Henrys talent for the ironic twist is exemplified in the title story and in “Two Thanksgiving Day Gentleman.” In 1907 he turned back to Western material in Heart of the West. Here the reader meets stages drivers, judges, ranchers, miners, Spanish beauties, drifters, and bandits. In 1908 O Henry also published The Voice of the City, the Voice of Massed Humanity, the Voice of New York. The stories in Roads of Destiny (1909) reflect his conviction that man cannot escape from his fate. In “Roads of Destiny” fate is a road; in “Phoebe” it is a star and a woman; in “A Retrieved Reformation” it is circumstance. In Whirligigs (1910) O Henry drew from all the backgrounds he had known and from much of his personal experience. “The Apotheosis of Failure” is an amusing tale of mistaken identity. “The Ransom of Red Chief,” the story of a kidnapped that boomeranged because the kidnapped child was an unspeakable terror, is pure fun.Chapter 3 The Features of O Henrys Works3.1 Surprising EndingThe ending of an article has long been considered as a conclusion or just a summary of the whole passage. Many literary masters have followed this principle. But when it comes to the latter times, many authors have tried other ways of composing the articles. They considered the ending as a way to elevate the artistic thought. O Henry may be the most famous one of them for his successful ending techniquethe twist ending.The so-called surprising ending (or sometimes O Henry ending) means at the end of an article the mental status or the fate of the character has changed greatly, and also this change is based on certain reasons mentioned in the previous article. But the whole passage is suddenly endowed with a great charm because of the sudden change and caused a long and deep consideration of the situation or problem the article has revealed. This kind of ending is often seen in the O Henry articles, and the most successful ones are in O Henry articles.His most famous story, “The Gift of the Magi” concerns a young couple who are short of money but desperately want to buy each other Christmas gifts. Unbeknownst to Jim, Della sells her most valuable possession, her beautiful hair, in order to buy a platinum fob chain for Jims watch; unbeknown to Della, Jim sells his most valuable possession, his watch, to buy jeweled combs for Dellas hair. The author arranged the entire plot just to get the readers to wait, to cause a suspense, the pleasurable excitement and anticipation of the outcome. From the beginning, the readers keep guessing what Jim and Della will buy each other, and the coincidence of their gifts is the greatest suspense the author put in his article. And then the author give the answer to the question, here is the ending. And another example for his twist ending is The Cop and the Anthem. This is a really funny story, the main character, Soapy, is prepared for the coming winterto get into the prison, when every trial fails and he is moved by the anthem of the church. He decides to make a man of himself again and to conquer the evil that have taken possession of him. But not until the anthem is finished, this time he is hopefully arrested for doing nothing. When Soapy has realized how foolish he is and decides to live a new life, the fact deprives him the right, the ending keeps us thinking about the whole society and Soapy. What makes the story so successful is the ending, the sudden twist not only give the readers a sudden fall, but also let us think a lot.The twist that comes at the end of each story is so perplexing, that you will have to re-read the entire story after reading the ending, but completely delighted at the way in which O Henry has misled you. O Henrys short stories fascinate many readers because of his surprising ending. 3.2 HumorHumor originates from the famous poet Ben Jasons “Four Humors” theory, which is used to describe some comical warp role in “Comedy of Humors” in Elizabeths era in England. Now, this terminology indicates some comical conversation and some ridiculous exterior or behavioral mode. Its purpose is to obtain the serious or joking effect. According to J.R. Schmitz (2002), humor can be divided into there types:1) universal humor; 2) culture humor; 3) linguistic humor. In this section, I will analyze the different types of humor in O Henrys works in detail.3.2.1 Universal humorUniversal humor, also called reality-based humor, mainly refers to some humorous situation or incidents which can be understood by people of many cultures. For instance, situation in which a child makes extremely mature, adult-like statement or anyone gives the unexpected and unusual responses would appear funny in most cultures. People of different culture are able to understand this kind of humor even without any culture background information. It can be illustrated by some examples as follows.(1) Ill tell you the right way. Did you ever see a man sneak out in the backyard and pick up a rock to throw at a tom-cat that was sitting on a fence looking at him? He pretends he hasnt got a thing in his hand, and that the cat dont see him, and that he dont see the cat. Thats the idea. (Telemachus, Friend)(2) With a snappy Good morning, Pitcher, Maxwell dashed at his desk as though he were intending to leap over it, and then plunged into the great heap of letters and telegrams waiting there for him. (The Romance of a Busy Broker)The first paragraph is Telemachuss experience in how to pick up a womans hand and hold it. He thinks that it is just like a man who “sneaks out in the back yard and picks up a rock to throw at a tom-cat. O Henry uses a series of verbs, such as “sneak”, “pick”, “throw”, and “pretend” to depict a comic scene. The use of “dash” and “plunge” in the second paragraph vividly presents the image of a busy broker whose behavior is just like a machine in the financial world. While reading the examples above, readers could easily understand the humor between the lines.3.2.2 Culture humor Culture humor is subjected to culture which provides established forms for humorous production and expression. Through established forms and culture values, culture has a strong influence on humor in term of what to laugh at, how to laugh is provked and accepted, why to laugh under certain occasions, etc. people can not understand the culture humor without specific culture background information.For example:(1) For years the hospitable Blackwells had been his winter quarter. Just as his more fortunate fellow New Yorkers had been bought their tickets to Palm Beach and the Rivera each winter, so Soapy had made his humble arrangements for his annual hegira to the Island. (The Cop and the Anthem)If people know nothing about the word hegira, they will never comprehend the humor between the lines. The word hegira means Muhammads flight from Mecca to Medina in 622.AD, from which date the Muslim era is reckoned. Here in this paragraph, O Henry compares Soapy, a homeless man, to the great saint Muhammad. The sharp contrast between the two characters produces the effect of humor.(2) Now, there are two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jims gold watch that had been his fathers and his grandfathers; the other was Dellas hair. Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Dellas would have let her hair hang out the window some to dry just to depreciate Her Majestys jewels and gift. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy. (The Gift of Magi) Chinese readers may have little knowledge about Queen of Sheba and King Solomon. According to Dr. Susan Durber (1998), Queen of Sheba came to test King Solomon with hard question she wanted to know whether he was really as wise as they said he was. So, the Bible is interested in her because of her mind. But posterity has remembered her for the rich gifts she brought with her, spices, gold and precious stones, gifts that lend her a kind of oriental exoticism. The text says that she was breathless before Solomons wisdom and admitted that his God must be the greatest.