修改后完整版论文：欧亨利短篇小说艺术特色

1、 本科生毕业论文题 目： ohenrys artistic characteristics in his short stories欧亨利短篇小说艺术特色 学生姓名： 学 号： 专业班级： 指导教师： 完成时间： the syntax of noun phrasesthesissubmitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements forthe degree of bachelor of artsbysupervisor:may 2009摘 要欧亨利(o.henry,1862-1910)是美国二十世纪著名的短篇小说大师、现代短篇小说的创始人之一

2、。他的作品构思奇巧，文字简练形象，语调风趣幽默。欧亨利善于捕捉生活中司空见惯的小事来塑造角色，而且创造了悬念突变的“欧亨利式结尾”，其作品具有独特的艺术魅力。本文试就其作品中生动的人物，出人意料的结尾，简洁凝练的语言和幽默调侃的笔调进行探讨。 关键词：欧亨利；短篇小说；艺术特色；幽默i abstracto. henry is a master of short story at the twentieth century in america, commonly regarded as one of the founders of modern short story. his distinc

3、tive short stories are characterized by his unique artistic characteristics and win immense popularity among the public both at home and abroad. this paper tries to explore the common artistic characteristics embodied in his short stories, including his lively characters, humorous and witty tone and

4、 the surprising ending.key words: o. henry; stories; artistic characteristics; humoriicontents摘 要 .iabstract .iiintroduction .1chapter 1 lively characters.31.1 characters and techniques of portraying them.3 1.1.1 various characters. 31.1.2 techniques of portraying characters.4 1.2 characters work on

5、 deepening the role and significance of the subject.10chapter2 humorous style.142.1 humorous language.142.2 humorous plot.17chapter 3 ohenry-style ending.20 3.1 tearful smile21 3.2 smiles full of tears.24conclusion.28bibliography.31acknowledgementsintroductionohenry is commonly associated with the s

6、hort story and the masterful ironic “o henry twist”. a prolific writer, ohenry wrote most often about new york city, where he spent his later years, he has been called “the american de maupassant”. years of hardships, vagrancy and prison supplied ohenry with abundant material for writing. the traged

7、y in his own life the bad luck that seemed to bind him had taught him a chivalrous tenderness for the unluck, a sympathetic understanding of the underdogs, and this compassion of his is evident in most of his short stories. ohenrys stories about new york city the best of which are included in the fo

8、ur million are his most famous.his works in the four million are full of humor. his stories are amusing, flippant, flat and filled with irony and sentiment. drawing directly on his experiences, he combined realism with a world of his own. commonly recurring themes in ohenrys short stories are those

9、of deception, mistaken identity, the effect of coincidence, the inexorable nature of fate, and the resolution of seemingly insurmountable difficulties separating two lovers.over recent hundreds of years, works of ohenrys have been published for several editions, and always attracting a great number

10、of readers. ohenrys writing is seen as straightforward and simple, written in plain language. his stories may rely on a sameness of plot, but the sharp, unexpected twist at the end is still his distinctive trademark today.(田2005:5) as readers, we like ohenrys stories very much because we can get muc

11、h fun from them. lively characters, humorous style, and the surprising ending which leave us endless thinking, are the main factors to attract and strike us.chapter 1lively characters1.1 characters and techniques of portraying them1.1.1 various charactersohenrys complicated living experiences, which

12、 make him know peoples life from different classes very clearly, are really a large number of fortunes for his writing inspiration. with his pen, he has successfully portrayed many different kinds of vivid characters, such as harvey maxwell, a busy broker, jim and della, an impecunious new york coup

13、le, behrman, a selfless old painter, soapy, an unlucky street loafer and so on.the characters and the short stories come from his life, but o henrys humorous style and surprising endings help to explain why his short stories are still enjoyed these many years after his death. on the character portra

14、ying art in ohenrys short stories, the characters have two distinct features. first, the idea of portraying is quite new to strike the readers. second, his writing style is quite calm and humorous although he is going to tell us sad stories, which is mixed with sweetness and bitterness, smiles and t

15、ears, happiness and sadness.as we know, ohenry was from the lower rank of society and he worked in various jobs. so he knew the common peoples lifestyle very well. in his story, the characters he portrayed are a wide range of common people, such as white-collar men and women, art students, waiters,

16、factory girls and millionaires to cops and crooks. he entitled his second book the four million which was a collection of many short stories about new york city. in his eyes, the four million swarming multitudes were the social basis of new york city in contradiction to “the four hundred” urban aris

17、tocratic social registers. he used to wander about new york city, drift into conversation with strangers on the streets or in the parks and observe with an acute eye and ear, sights and sounds nuances of day and night on broadway, in greenwich village, or on watt street. he was very familiar with or

18、dinary people and the way he represents them in his stories gives the reader the impression that they meet these characters everyday. they have not any striking characteristics, nor would they be easily found in a large multitude of people. and they have the same feature “commonness”.1.1.2 technique

19、s of portraying charactersohenry portrayed these “common people” in an uncommon way. the twist of plot turns on an ironic or coincidental circumstance, and the surprising endings help to make deep impressions on readers of the typical characters.take the gift of the magi for an example. the story is

20、 about a young married couple, each of whom sells a treasured possession to obtain money to buy a christmas present for the other. the opening of the story is just like the daily life happening around us everyday .but then the plot turns into a sudden twist that della sells her beautiful long hair t

21、o buy the platinum chain for her husband jims watch. we feel it is a pity that della has her precious long hair cut. but to our surprise, jim has sold the watch to buy the jeweled tortoise-shell combs for his wifes hair. ohenry builds up, to his surprise, twist very artfully, and with deft touches h

22、e elicits the readers admiration and sympathy for the young couple whose love for each other is more than everything. whats more, o henry does not end on the note of irony and surprise, but gives to what he calls his uneventful chronicle of two foolish children the appearance of a little parable wit

23、h a significant meaning. the magi, he reminds the reader, were wise men who brought gifts to the christ child, and thus inventing the giving of christmas present. as for jim and della, “they are the magi”. (voss, 1973:24) this is the ending of the story with ohenrys style.besides the twist of plot a

24、nd the surprising ending, he also used a variety of rhetoric tactics to portray the characters in his short stories. with the various portraying methods, the characters are made more vivid, distinct and lifelike. so it is said that a writer is just like a magician of life since he can use his pen to

25、 make so many fictional characters with flesh and blood. ohenry is a skillful magician too, who figured many visual protagonists very successfully. the key to the success is the rhetoric devices, such as contrast, exaggeration, irony, metaphor, and simile and so on. these rhetoric devices play an im

26、portant part in the short stories to promote the development of the plot, and to figure the characters feelings. especially the use of irony, can be seen everywhere in his short stories, and is one of the most writing skills in his stories.irony is a kind of expression of something which is contrary

27、 to the intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another. (ross, 2007) ohenry is good at using rhetorical irony to emphasize some special features of the characters, to disclose some serious problems and to embody his feelings towards somebody or something. the rhetorical irony can make th

28、e stories more humorous and more significant. it is a typical writing skill of ohenrys.we can realize the niceties of irony in his short stories, such as in the whirling of life. the story is mainly about the divorce and the resumption of the marriage of a couple. ransie bilbro and his wife, ariela

29、bilbro went to the justice of the peace benaja widdups office to sue for divorce one day. they were dissatisfied with each other and complained of each other for many reasons .then the justice of the peace handled their divorce formality according to the so-called “equity and the constitution and th

30、e golden rule”. the irony here discloses the essence of the laws in the capital society. the laws were tools for the capitalists to make more money. the following plot tells us what the irony really means. the husband had only five dollars to afford the price of divorce and he needed another five do

31、llars to afford his wifes alimony. however, the next day, the husband brought the alimony, which was heisted from the justice of the peace the day before, to the office to continue the matter. “and then with his (benaja widdups) next words he achieve (as his thought ran) with either great crowd of t

32、he worlds sympathizers or the little crowd of its great financiers.”(henry 1995:45) this paragraph is to analyze the purpose of the officers following words, which are the turning point of the whole story. the author uses the irony to satirize the officer that what he wants is just the money. finall

33、y the couple found they still loved each other, so they remarried and gave the officer five dollars for the poundage. the ending of the story is quite satisfactory for the three people because the couple did not divorce finally and the justice of the peace got his five dollars back. this is an artfu

34、l ending and the irony in the story really makes a great effort to satirize the character, the society and the capitalism.metaphor is implied comparison achieved through a figurative use of words or the word is used not in its literal sense, but in one analogous to it. (ross, 2007) ohenry can make c

35、haracters, environment and scenery more vivid and imposing by using his own writing skills. he often uses comparison to join two different things with similar features together to pop out the characteristics. whats more, his metaphor always brings something new and funny to the readers. thats ohenry

36、s style.the cop and the anthem is a story about a street loafers unlucky encounter of a day. the article is full of novel and unique rhetoric such as simile, metaphor, exaggeration and so on. though a short story, it is a mirror of the society reality at that time, when the rich lived in luxury whil

37、e the poor suffered cold or even starvation. the protagonist, soapy, was a jobless, homeless and penniless street loafer. he wanted to go to blackwells, an island with a prison, to spend the whole winter as usual. so he committed crime so many times advisedly to try to be arrested by the cop. but he

38、 all failed. when he was influenced by the anthem from an old church he passed by and determined to be a good man, his hope was again broken into pieces by the iron arm of the law. in the article, the author compared the north wind to the “footman of the mansion of all outdoors”, (henry 1995:33) the

39、 island to the “winter refuge”,(33) the policemen to the “laws minions”,(33) the thought that soapy could probably be arrested to the “straw of disorderly conduct”(33) and so on. the sarcastic effect will be strengthened by the metaphor. we can see that was an impersonal world where there was a wide

40、spread disorder and chaos, and where people felt displaced yet trapped and finally they surrendered. (chen, 2002) the authors words are full of sympathy for soapy fate.simile is an explicit comparison between two things using “like” or “as”. (ross, 2007) it can be seen everywhere in ohenrys works. v

41、arious characters, multifarious scenery and familiar things and phenomenon in ohenrys short stories usually wear the overcoat of simile. (wang, 2006) when we taste the language very carefully, the scene will come up in our mind very clearly. ohenrys simile is easy and casual, but it is the high refi

42、ning of the life experiences, so it successfully gives the readers abundant imagination.because ohenry emphasizes character portraying, he makes the characters lifelike and his stories win the honor of “the encyclopedia of american life”. simile takes a key role in character portraying art in his sh

43、ort stories. in the gift of the magi, the author describes the surprised husband “as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail” (henry 1995:25) when he saw his wife, dellas hair. and then he describes the moved and astonished wife “like a little singed cat and cried, oh, oh!”(25) when she saw the

44、present for her and recalled her present for his husband. the description was so vivid that we can almost see the temporal scene. in the furnished room, the housekeeper is described as “an unwholesome, surfeited worm that had eaten its nut to a hollow shell and now sought to fill the vacancy with ed

45、ible lodgers” (henry 1995:78) and “her throat seemed lined with fur”. (78) we have ever seen worm and fur, but we have never seen an unwholesome and surfeited worm and throat lined with fur. such an indescribable and fancy appearance makes us feel that the housekeeper is a disgusting fat woman. feli

46、citous simile can give us different feelings to the characters, such as averseness, favor, admiration and so on. ohenrys rhetorical simile, which is a flare spot in his short stories, is quite super-eminent because of his abundant life experiences and his excellent writing skills.what i cited above

47、is just a few, and there are still many other rhetoric devices and countless examples.1.2 characters work on deepening the role and significance of the subject ohenrys sympathy for the poor social underdogs, is highlighted as the keynote of his works. humanity endows his works with perpetual artisti

48、c charm. that is why his works are famous all over the world.in his works, ohenry presents the panorama of the american people to readers with ironic and humorous tone. he discloses the unfair, unreasonable and abnormal fate of the “small potatoes” of the society. he is sympathetic with them. at the

49、 same time, he plays the role of spokesman for these “small potatoes” to state their joys and sorrows of life with the yearning for human virtues. the most obvious feature of o henrys short stories is the painstaking characterization of these “small potatoes”. johnsy and sue in the last leaf present

50、 the sincere friendship, and behrman sacrifices his life to encourage and save sue, which shows the indiscriminate love of humans. jim and della in the gift of the magi, together with joe larrabee and delia caruther in a service of love compose a love story to be engraved on our bones and heart. and

51、 there are so many glorious images in his works. they are kind, brave, honest, hard-working, polite, thrifty, generous and hospitable and so on. some people pay a great deal in order to maintain these virtues. they sacrifice their own happiness and even life for the lofty love and friendship; and th

52、ey help others without asking for rewards and regard it as a pleasure; they give up their own treasure and chance to others etc. such people bring love and fine things to the world; they are the ones who endow the world with light and hope.human beings have many defects, too. sometimes they are lazy

53、, rapacious, officious, vain, arrogant, shameless and cowardly, etc. they benefit themselves at the expense of others; they never show mercy and sympathy to the poor in order to make money; and they realize their own aims by hook and crook etc. their evil deeds make the world vicious. by exposing th

54、e human defects and the dark side of the world, ohenry wants to awaken peoples conscience and deepest desire for all good things, so that people can use their efforts to save and cleanse the whole world.in fact, there is not any dynamic love or exciting adventures in henrys book. they are some warm

55、and compact stories, which moved readers to laughter and sometimes tears. and that is where the charm of ohenrys novels lies. without doubt, ohenry has a deep insight into human destiny and human nature. in his writing, all these images mentioned above not only show us a wonderful description of bea

56、uty of human nature, but also expose the darkness in the society.ohenry, with the help of those realistic and vivid characters, observes the world from his own point of view on the basis of his personal experience, describes humans living conditions to manifest human virtues and defects with his humor and irony, praises the beauty of human nature and criticizes strongly the darkness of the capitalists. his works show readers a vivid description of human nature and his deep understanding of humanity, and remind readers of the remaining truth, kindness, and beauty of humanity in the soc