The Features of O’ Henry’s Short Stories.doc

The 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 3.2.3.1 At the Lexical Level.8 3.2.3.2 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