欧亨利小说艺术特色

1、 本科生毕业论文题目：OHenrys Artistic Characteristics in His Short Stories学生姓名： 周绍君 学 号： 200607010413 专业班级： 英语语言文学 指导教师： 宗乐善 完成时间： 2010年5月 THE SYNTAX OF NOUN PHRASESTHESISSubmitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements forThe degree of Bachelor of ArtsIn Hunan University of Arts and ScienceByZhou Shaojun

2、Supervisor:Zong LeshanMay 2009Hunan University of Arts and Science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。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；结尾i AbstractO

3、. 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 distinctive short stories are characterized by his unique artistic characteristics and win immense popularity among the public both at home and abroad. This pap

4、er tries to explore the common artistic characteristics embodied in his short stories, including his lively characters, humorous and witty tone and the surprising ending.Key words: O. Henry; stories; artistic characteristics; humor; ending;iiContents摘 要 .iAbstract .iiIntroduction .1Chapter 1 Lively

5、Characters.31.1 Characters and Techniques of Portraying Them.3 1.1.1 Various Characters. 31.1.2 Techniques of Portraying Them.4 1.2 Characters Work on Deepening the Role and Significance of the Subject.10Chapter2 Humorous Style.142.1 Humorous Language.142.2 Humorous Plot.17Chapter 3 O Henry Ending.2

6、0 3.1 Tearful Smile21 3.2 Smiles Full of Tears.24Conclusion.28Bibliography.31AcknowledgementsIntroductionO Henry is commonly associated with the short story and the masterful ironic “O Henry Twist”. A prolific writer, O Henry wrote most often of New York City, where he spent his later years, He has

7、been called “the American De Maupassant”. Years of hardships, vagrancy and prison supplied O Henry with abundant material for writing. The tragedy in his own life the bad luck that seemed to bound him had taught him a chivalrous tenderness for the unluck, a sympathetic understanding of the underdog,

8、 and this compassion of his is evident in most of his short stories. O Henrys stories about New York City the best of which are included in The Four 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 sentimen

9、t. Drawing directly from his experience, he combined realism with a world of his own. Commonly recurring themes in O Henrys short stories are those of deception, mistaken identity, the effect of coincidence, the inexorable nature of fate, and the resolution of seemingly insurmountable difficulties s

10、eparating two lovers.Over recent hundreds of years, works of O Henry have been publicized for several editions, and always attract a great amount of readers. O Henrys writing is seen as straightforward and simple, written in plain language. His stories may rely on a sameness of plot, but the sharp,

11、unexpected twist at the end is still his distinctive trademark today.(田2005:5) As readers, we like O Henrys stories very much because we can get much fun from them. Lively characters, humorous style, and the surprising ending which leave us endless thinking, are the main factors to attract and strik

12、e us.Chapter 1Lively Characters1.1 Characters and Techniques of Portraying Them1.1.1 Various CharactersO Henrys complicated living experience, which makes him know that peoples life from different classes very clearly, is really a large amount of fortune for his writing inspiration. With his pen, he

13、 has successfully portrayed many different kinds of vivid characters, such as Harvey Maxwell, a busy broker; Jim and Della, an impecunious New York couple; 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

14、 humorous style and surprising endings help to explain why his short stories are still enjoyed these many years after his death. On the character portraying art in O Henrys short stories, the characters have two distinct features. First, the idea of portraying is quite new to strike the readers. Sec

15、ond, 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 tears, happiness and sadness.As we know, O Henry was from the lower rank of society and he worked in various jobs. So he knew the common peoples lif

16、e style 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, factory girls and millionaires to cops and crooks. He entitled his second book The Four Million which was a collection of many short stories abou

17、t 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” of the citys aristocratic social registers. He used to wander about New York City, drifting into conversation with strangers on the streets or in the parks

18、 observing 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 ordinary people and the way he represents them in his stories gives the reader the impression that they meet these characters everyday. The

19、y have not any striking characteristics, nor would they be easy to find in a large multitude of people. And they had a same feature “common”.1.1.2 Techniques of Portraying ThemO Henry portrayed these “common people” in an uncommon way. The twist of plot, which turns on an ironic or coincidental circ

20、umstance, and the surprising ending help to make deep impressions on readers of the typical characters.Take The Gift of the Magi for an example, the story is 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

21、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 to buy the platinum chain for her husband, Jim watch. We feel so pity that Della has her precious long hair cut. But to our surprise, Jim has so

22、ld the watch to buy the jeweled tortoise-shell combs for his wifes hair. O Henry builds up to his surprise twist very artfully, and with deft touches he elicits the readers admiration and sympathy for the young couple whose love for each other more than everything. Whats more, O Henry does not end o

23、n 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 with a significant meaning. The Magi, he reminds the reader, were wise men who brought gifts to the Christ child, and thus invented the giving of Christmas

24、 present. As for Jim and Della, “they are the magi”. (Voss, 1973:24) This is the ending of the story with O Henrys style.Except the twist of plot and the surprising ending, he also used a variety of rhetoric tactics to portray the characters in his short stories. With the various portraying methods,

25、 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 make so many fictional characters with flesh and blood. O Henry is a skillful magician too, who figured many visual protagonists very successfully. The

26、key to the success are the rhetoric devices, such as contrast, exaggeration, irony, metaphor, simile and so on. These rhetoric devices play an important part in the short stories to impulse the development of the plot, to figure the characters feelings. Especially the use of irony, can be seen every

27、where in his short stories, and be one of the most writing skill in his stories.Irony is a kind of expression of something which is contrary to the intended meaning; the words say one thing but mean another. (Ross, 2007) O Henry is good at using rhetorical irony to emphasize some special features of

28、 the characters, to disclose some serious problems and to embody his feelings towards somebody or something. The rhetorical irony can make the stories more humorous and more significant. It is a typical writing skill of O Henry.We can realize the niceties of irony in his short stories, such as in Th

29、e 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 Bilbro went to the Justice of the Peace Benaja Widdup s office to sue for divorce one day. They dissatisfied and complained each other for many reasons .Then t

30、he Justice of the Peace handled their divorce formality according to the so-called “equity and the Constitution and the golden rule”. The irony here discloses that the essential of the laws in the capital society. The laws were tools for the capitalists to make more money. The following plot tells u

31、s what the irony really means. The husband had only five dollars to afford the price of divorce and he needed another five dollars to afford hid 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 con

32、tinue the matter. “And then with his (Benaja Widdups) nest words he achieve (as his thought ran) with either great crowd of the worlds sympathizers or the little crowd of its gret financiers.” This paragraph is to analyze the purpose of the officers following words, which are the turning point of th

33、e whole story. The author uses the irony to satire the officer that what he want is just the money. Finally 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 t

34、he couple did not divorce finally and the Justice of the Peace got his five dollars back. This is an artful 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 word

35、s or the word is used not in its literal sense, but in one analogous to it. (Ross, 2007) O Henry can make characters, 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 c

36、haracteristic. Whats more, his metaphor always brings something new and funny to the readers. Thats O. Henrys 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.

37、Though a short story, it is a mirror of the society reality at that time, when the rich lived in luxury while the poor suffered severe 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

38、 whole winter as usual. So he committed crime for so many times advisedly to try to be arrested by the cop. But he 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 th

39、e article, the author compared the north wind to the “footman of the mansion of all outdoors”, the island to the “winter refuge”, the policemen to the “laws minions”, the thought Soapy could probably be arrested to the “straw of disorderly conduct” and so on. The sarcastic effect will be strengthene

40、d by the metaphor. We can see that was an impersonal world where there was a widespread disorder and chaos, and where people felt displaced yet trapped and finally they surrendered. (Chen, 2002) The authors words are full of sympathy for the fate of Soapy.Simile is an explicit comparison between two

41、 things using “like” or “as”. (Ross, 2007) It can be seen everywhere in O. Henrys works. Various characters, multifarious scenery and familiar things and phenomenon in O. Henrys short stories usually wear the overcoat of simile. (Wang, 2006) When we taste the language very carefully, the scene will

42、come up in our mind very clearly. O. Henrys simile is easy and casual, but it is the high refining of the life experience, so it successfully gives the readers abundant imagination.Because O. Henry emphasizes character portraying, he makes the characters lifelike and his stories win the honor of “th

43、e encyclopedia of American life”. Simile takes a key role in character portraying art in his short stories. In The Gift of the Magi, the author describes the surprised husband “as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail” when he saw his wife, Dellas hair. And then he describes the moved and asto

44、nished wife “like a little singed cat and cried, Oh, oh!” when she saw the 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

45、 eaten its nut to a hollow shell and now sought to fill the vacancy with edible lodgers” and “her throat seemed lined with fur”. 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 fee

46、l that the housekeeper is a disgusting fat woman. Felicitous simile can give us different feelings to the characters, such as averseness, favor, admiration and so on. O. Henrys rhetorical simile, which is a flare spot in his short stories, is quite super-eminent because of his abundant life experien

47、ces and his excellent writing skill.What I cited above is just a few, there are still many other rhetoric devices and countless examples.1.2 Characters Work on Deepening the Role and Significance of the Subject O Henrys sympathy for the poor social underdogs, are highlighted as the keynote of his wo

48、rks. Humanity endows his works with perpetual artistic charm. That is why his works are famous all over the world.In his works, O Henry presents the panorama of the American people to readers with ironic and humorous tone. He encloses the unfair, unreasonable and abnormal ate of the “small potatoes”

49、 of the society. He is sympathetic with them. At the 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 “smal

50、l potatoes”. Johnsy and Sue in The Last Leaf presents 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

51、love story to be engraved on our bones and heart. And 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 an

52、d even life for the lofty love and friendship, they 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 being

53、s have many defects, too. Sometimes they are lazy, 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, they realize their own aims by hook and crook etc. Their evil

54、 deeds make the world vicious. By exposing the human defects and the dark side of the world, O Henry 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

55、adventures in Henrys book. They are some warm and compact stories, which moved readers to laughter and sometimes tears. And that is where the charm of O. Henrys novels lies. Without doubt, O. Henry has a deep insight into human destiny and human nature. In his writing, all these images mentioned abo

56、ve not only show us a wonderful description of beauty of human nature, but also expose the darkness in the society.O Henry, 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

57、 to manifest human virtues and defects with his humor and irony, praises for 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 society