论文总字数：28996字

摘 要

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Introduction of Mark Twain 1

1.2 An overview of the writing background 2

1.3 Need of study 3

2. Literature Review 4

3. The Analysis of Mark Twain's Writing Techniques 7

3.1 The writing characteristics of Mark Twain's humor 7

3.1.1 Use contrast to embody a sense of humor 7

3.1.2 Use exaggeration to embody humor 8

3.1.3 Use the first-person narration to embody the absurd world 8

3.2 A shift from comic humor to satirical humor 9

3.2.1 Realistic reasons for the change in Mark Twain’s writing style 9

3.2.2 The humor in Mark Twain’s later works totally reveals acrimony and satire 10

4. Conclusion 12

References 13

Acknowledgments

I want to acknowledge Mrs. Liu, my constant consultant, who has made useful suggestions on working out the outline, refining the drafts and given me enlightening advice throughout the whole process of writing the thesis. Especially during the epidemic, I benefited a lot from her encouragement, care and guidance.

This work also owes much to my dear friends whose encouragement and great help inspired me to make further efforts when I encountered difficulties and when I was at a loss.

My heart-felt thanks also go to my father and mother, who have been in constant favor of me and offered me the best they could. This thesis would not have been completed without the support and assistance from them. My grateful thanks go to you all.

Abstract

Mark Twain was an outstanding American realist writer in the 19th century. He has written a large number of novels in his life. It is easy to find a great deal of humor was used in his novels. In other words, humor is the greatest feature of Mark Twain’s writing style. Over the years, many scholars and writers at home and abroad have analyzed and studied Mark Twain’s humor. Some scholars believe that Mark Twain’s humor changed from comic humor to tragic humor in the later period. They think this form of humor shows Mark Twain’s despair and depression. Through the analysis of Mark Twain’s three works, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885)， Running for Governor (1870), and The Million Pound Note (1893). I suppose the above view is one-sided. Take The Million Pound Note (1893) as an example. This is Mark Twain’s work in the later period, and there is a lot of humor in the form of comedy. Therefore, this paper analyzes the humor techniques reflected in Mark Twain's works, and draws a conclusion that Mark Twain's humor view changes from comedy humor to satirical humor. Mark Twain is a great humorist, and his view of humor is the treasure of world literature. The purpose of this paper is to better understand and apply Mark Twain's humor to literary creation through analysis and research.

Key Words: Mark Twain; writing techniques; comic humor; satirical humor

中文摘要

马克·吐温是19世纪美国杰出的现实主义作家。他一生创作了大量的小说，在仔细阅读之后不难发现，其中充斥着大量的幽默成分。换句话说，幽默就是马克·吐温写作手法中的最大特点。多年来，国内外也有很多学者、文学家对马克·吐温的幽默观作出了分析和研究。有部分学者认为马克·吐温的幽默观在后期作出了变化——由喜剧式幽默转变成了悲剧式幽默。他们认为这种幽默形式表现出的就是马克·吐温的绝望与沮丧。通过对马克·吐温三部作品(《哈克贝利费恩历险记》、《竞选州长》、《百万英镑》）中的品读与分析，我认为以上观点是片面的。以《百万英镑》为例，这是马克·吐温的晚期作品，其中不乏以喜剧形式为表现的幽默手法。因此本文从马克·吐温在作品中反映出的幽默手法进行分析，得到了马克·吐温的幽默观由喜剧化幽默到以讽刺性幽默为主的风格转变的结论。马克·吐温是伟大的幽默大师，他的幽默观是世界文学的瑰宝，本文旨在通过对马克·吐温幽默观的分析与研究，更好地理解并将其运用到文学创造上。

关键词：马克·吐温；写作手法；喜剧式幽默；讽刺性幽默

Introduction

Mark Twain is a famous humorist in the mid and late nineteenth century. During his life, Mark Twain created a great number of works. These works are famous for humor and satire. This part will give a brief introduction to Mark Twain’s life and his writing background. With this introduction, we can better understand Mark Twain’s humor.

1.1 Introduction of Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens is an American author who is known as his pen name——Mark Twain. The term was originally used by sailors to indicate the depth of water measured on the waterway. Mark Twain has written a large number of works throughout his life, covering novels, plays, prose, poetry and other aspects. But he is noted for his novels. It is acknowledged that Mark Twain is a great literary giant of America in the late 19^th century. Mark Twain is one of the most prominent novelists in American literature, a representative critical writer of realistic literature and a famous master of humor in America. As we all know, his works are famous for humor and satire. After all, he says, humor is a saving force. He is good at using humor to create comedy plots, and combining with rational thinking, in order to favorably extract the “little” of ordinary people to poignantly reveal the real society of America in the late nineteenth century and severely criticizes it. Thus, Mark Twain is called as the mirror of America.

His representative works include The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), Running for Governor (1870), and The Million Pound Note (1893) and so on. His works are often under the surface of humor, funny and exaggeration, which exposes the United States and existing problems of human society, humorously and wittily reveals the life of good and evil, beauty and ugliness, incisively and vividly expresses his love or hate. In fact, Mark Twain’s humor is the outstanding heritage of American literature and he pushes humor to a new height by using humor and irony in his novels.

1.2 An overview of the writing background

Mark Twain was born on November 30, 1835, in a poor rural lawyer’s family in Florida, Missouri. He was the sixth of seven children. His father, a local lawyer, was poorly paid. He spent his childhood on his uncle's farm on the Mississippi River. This period of farm life made him have more contact and understanding of the Blacks. And the love and sympathy for the tragic fate of Blacks come into being in his young heart. From the time his father died when he was 12 years old, Mark Twain embarked on a life of wandering and earning his own living. He had been an apprentice printer, a typesetter, a gold miner, a pilot on the Mississippi River, and a journalist... His turbulent life made him travel all over the United States, from which he became familiar with the social life and various characters of the American middle and lower classes. He had no formal schooling. The farms, factories, mines, and rivers where he had worked as a teenager were his universities. His rich experience in life and his great zeal for people’s sayings, folk tales and legends laid a good foundation for his later literary creation.

Mark Twain's writing career began after the civil war in the 1860s. After the civil war ended with the victory of the industrial bourgeoisie, American capitalism developed rapidly. And the transition from free competition to monopoly capital was carried out. The domestic labor movement was rising. Class conflicts and racial conflicts were fierce, and the conflicts with the people of foreign colonial countries were becoming increasingly acute. The development of American capitalism after the civil war shattered the golden card of the “free state” of the United States and exposed the evil and decadent nature of the capitalist society more and more clearly. As the United States was transforming from a young nation divided within itself into a world power, Mark Twain underwent great changes, including westward expansion, the industrial revolution, the abolition of slavery, technological advances, the idea of big government, and foreign wars. In such a revolutionary world, Mark Twain did not complain about anything and anyone, but gave play to his writing talent and fully expressed his concern and views on the society by means of humor and satire. The characteristics of American society in this period were truly and profoundly reflected in a large number of his works. That is why he became one of the American typical figures. This is the social and historical background that Mark Twain experienced.

1.3 Need of study

The main mission of this thesis is to discuss Mark Twain’s humor by combining with the previous researches, analyzing and appreciating Mark Twain’s novels, especially Running for Governor (1870), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) and The Million Pound Note (1893). Mark Twain was well aware of the high and low taste of humor. He believes in teaching through play. In this, he distinguished himself from the pure humorists. In his relaxed and optimistic works, he also exposes and satirizes people and society. Mark Twain thought it necessary to lecture and exhort people in the form of humor. So his humor is not just for fun. Such a way also has very important practical significance in our real life. Therefore, it is beneficial to understand Mark Twain’s humor in daily communication. In addition, there are a variety of researches on Mark Twain's later style. This paper aims to get my understanding of Mark Twain’s view of humor by analyzing the conclusions of previous researches.

2. Literature Review

For a long time, Mark Twain’s literary contributions have attracted much attention. Scholars at home and abroad have made profound studies on the historical value and practical significance of his literary works. Besides, the humor and satire in his works has been discussed from generation to generation. In foreign countries, there are a lot of comments and biographies about Mark Twain, such as Mark Twain Speaks for Himself (Paul Fatout, 1997) and My Father Mark Twain (Susy Clemens, 1885), which mainly introduce Mark Twain’s life experience or comment on Mark Twain. There are also several who focus on Mark Twain’s writing style and artistic technique, especially focusing on his humorous and satirical style. In China, most of the researches on Mark Twain’s language style are on his humorous expression techniques. This part of the literature review will be presented in the chronological order of Mark Twain’s three novels.

As a technique of artistic expression in fiction, the main external feature of humor is laughter, while its intrinsic quality is profound and meaningful philosophical connotation and distinct beauty and ugliness. The famous scholar Chen Xiaoying (1987) defined that beauty is the nature of humor. It refers to the writer in a mild attitude and implicit technique, through the contrast of beauty and ugliness. Then it can create an artistic conception that contains complex emotions, full of fun and thought-provoking, and produce a knowing smile to express the advantage of beauty over ugliness. In Mark Twain's works, the role of humor is not only to make readers laugh. His ultimate goal is to reflect the profound social content through the description of humorous people and things, and to give people a life of vigilance and enlightenment.

An American critic, William Dean Howells (1910) points out the irony and dissatisfaction of Mark Twain to the political and capitalist society through humor in his works. And in the study of Mark Twain’s humor, many scholars hold such a view. As Engels put it in a letter to Marx, history becomes more and more ironic. And the so-called legal election in capitalist society has almost become the highest form of expression of this social tone. It was Mark Twain who put this humor into a real social context. Humor is immortal only if it is based on real life. He said so and did so. At that time, the election of “freedom” in the United States was a trump card advocating freedom and democracy in the capitalist world. Mark. Twain chooses the election as the subject, exposes the insider of the election, vividly describes that the so-called “free election” of capitalism is purely deceptive lies. Running for Governor (1870) is a wonderful portrayal of this “free election” in the United States. The work is full of humorous language, hilarious plots and funny scenes which reveal the campaign scandal and making a bitter satire on the capitalist electoral system and the so-called democratic system.

Zheng (2008) holds that Mark Twain's early writings show that this seemingly light-hearted and imaginative humorist is in fact a serious social critic. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), one of Mark Twain's early novels, tells the story of a white boy named Huckleberry who vagabonds the Mississippi River with Jim, a runaway slave. But Mark Twain uses the first person and combines colloquialism with humor and irony to narrate the story. Phelps (1907) believes that Mark Twain’s humor is a typical American humor with the characteristics of asymmetry, exaggeration and anti-tradition. This kind of humor is not the humor of D.C. Owen - he’s imitating Edison or Thackeray. Mark Twain’s humor was not reserved but rather direct. It is intimate, and sometimes expresses the writer’s anger. Marcus Cunliffe (1986) once praised Mark Twain’s colloquialism. He said, “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.” And in this novel, he not only criticizes the feudal family’s savage duels, exposes the irrational lynching, and satirizes hypocrisy and folly of religion, condemns the sin of slavery, he also sings in praise of good quality of slaves and proposes that every ethnicity has the right to freedom.

At the end of his writing, because of his despair for the capitalist society, Mark Twain no longer hoped that the simple humorous way could save the American society. Thus, in his later writing career, Mark Twain’s works are mainly in forms of biting satire and direct lash, comic form secondarily. In The Million Pound Note (1893), Mark Twain is good at using exaggeration to amplify some dirty things in life. So, he could describe the things vividly. Such writing techniques can take the effects of exposing capitalist society’s artificial democracy, revolting against ethnic discrimination and taunting money omnipotence. Mark Twain’s anger to capitalist society was conveyed by strong irony. Zhang (2004) focuses on the satire and humor of his language and makes a concrete discussion in her master thesis Immortal Mark Twain -- A Brief Analysis of Mark Twain's Satire and Humor (2004). She thinks that Mark Twain's humor is not only the unique Mississippi humor full of life interest, but also the sarcastic humor and the pessimistic humor.

However, there is a Chinese scholar disagreeing. In the book The Real Mark Twain, Xu (1981) pointed out that “it is too absolute and one-sided to think that the bright humor of Mark Twain in the early period has died out in the later period, and only the biting satire is the style in the later period.” He thinks that in Mark Twain's later works and Autobiography of Mark Twain, there are still many lyric, lively, humorous discourse, even in his work The Mysterious Stranger (1926), which is full of the pessimism many people thought, however exactly is filled with extreme anger. He also discusses the humor and irony, affirms the invincible power of laugh and mentions the fusion of humor and irony. Therefore, Xu (1981) believes that the combination of humor and satire, which contains wisdom and justice, may be the true portrayal of Mark Twain in art. Mark Twain’s later works were more violent, which shows his anger and desire to confront capitalism through satirical humor. I don’t think Mark Twain would still have tried to expose the social reality and change the American society if he had been in a mood of despair and pessimism.

3. An Analysis of Mark Twain’s Writing Techniques

In this part, this paper will take three novels as examples to study and analyze Mark Twain’s writing techniques. In particular, his humorous techniques in his novels, such as contrast, exaggeration and first-person method, are worth studying. Through the analysis of the three novels in the preceding and the following stages, it can be found that Mark Twain’s writing style has changed from comic humor to satirical humor rather than simply turning to tragic humor. This part will also explain the reasons for his change of style and the effect of his change of satirical humor.

3.1 The writing characteristics of Mark Twain’s humor

Writing techniques are the means of reflecting social life, expressing thoughts and feelings, and introducing things. Mark Twain used different writing techniques in many of his novels, but these techniques can be closely associated with his humor and satire. It is also the most important way to reflect his humor. In his three novels, Mark Twain uses techniques such as contrast, exaggeration, and the first person, which has the rich research significance in the literary creation and the humorous expression technique.

3.1.1 Use contrast to embody a sense of humor

By putting two opposite things together to describe, the contrast technique can give people more vivid images and strong feelings. This is also a common technique in literary creation. In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), the boys, Finn and Jim, are the most obvious contrast. In terms of skin color alone, the two teenagers are white and black. It also represents two distinct classes. Both of them, however, share the same characteristic -- the yearning for freedom. So after escaping from Douglas, they began to wander down the Mississippi River. At first, Finn teased and made fun of Jim because of racial prejudice. However, after realizing Jim’s care and concern for him and seeing the kind and sincere qualities in Jim, he changed his attitude towards Jim and treated him as a friend and family member. Finn's different attitudes to Jim before and after are also a set of sharp contrast. This contrast reflects the profound

influence of slavery on people at that time and the ideal of equality that Mark Twain hoped to express through Finn.

In Running for Governor (1870), “I” am a decent candidate with a good reputation. In terms of moral character, “I” have a much greater possibility of winning the election than the other two candidates. But under the two candidates’ unbridled slandering and framing, “I” became more timid and more helpless, and conceded step by step. Finally “I” dropped out of the election. This set of contrast makes good and bad, beauty and ugliness stand out. The good guys end up getting notorious, but the bad guys get promoted, which is ridiculous. Mark Twain tried to depict all manners of ludicrous and absurd slandering. These scenes are comic scenes that make the reader laugh.

3.1.2 Use exaggeration to embody humor

Exaggeration is one of the common techniques used to produce a strong satirical effect. Exaggeration, if used properly, can create the ultimate artistic imagination, so that people or things will be full of fun and absurdity. The comic effect created by exaggeration often makes people break out in laughter.

Mark Twain used a lot of exaggeration in his novel Running for Governor (1870). In the case of “I” accused of defrauding a banana garden, and the location was a foreign country. The distance was long and unverifiable, but there were 34 witnesses. It reflects the myth of this charge and make people feel absurd. Another charge is that “I” burned down an insane asylum, and all the doctors and patients inside were burned to death. And “I” did such a crazy thing merely “because” the asylum was blocking the sight of “my” residence. They even instructed nine toddlers, all different in color and appearance, to come to the stage at a public meeting, hold my legs and call me daddy. The above three examples all make use of imagination to exaggerate or emphasize some characteristics of the described objects in order to highlight the absurd world and the ironical nature. We all know these things are impossible. Mark Twain used hyperbole to show more satire, but also magnify the comic effect.

3.1.3 Use the first-person narration to embody the absurd world

In The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), Mark Twain uses the first person narrative to let Finn tell the story of what he saw and heard as a child on the Mississippi River. The great advantage of telling a story in the voice of a fourteen-year-old boy is the lack of scruples. Mark Twain could say what he wanted through Finn’s mouth. For example, in regard to black slavery, adults would whitewash the situation, but children would reflect the suffering of black people truly and completely. A 14 - year - old boy can also appreciate its scenery and people of the Mississippi River. For readers, it can also be closer to Finn’s heart, understand his emotions, especially his sympathy for black people, so as to feel the social reality of the United States at that time. That is Mark Twain’s endowing pleasure to teaching.

In his Running for Governor (1870), he referred to the protagonist as Mark Twain, and often referred to himself as “I”. Readers in the process of reading often take the protagonist into Mark Twain himself, and can not help but laugh. In the novel, Mark Twain sees the whole absurd world with "my" eyes through the first-person narration. Treating myself as a gentleman and two opponents as shameless “bastards”, “I” was a nice guy who thought that his opponents were too bad to be eligible for election. However, “I” ended up reading about “my” “bad behavior” in the local newspaper. While “I” had not yet figured out the criticism, “I” was furious at the amount of crime that was pouring in. Eventually “I” bowed out of the race. When “I” see all of these absurd things happening to me, even from the reader's point of view, we can feel it is ridiculous deeply. This is the art of the first-person narrative.

3.2 A shift from comic humor to satirical humor

Starting in the late 1870s, twain's satire became apparent, such as Running for Governor (1870). By the 1890s, he was taking a closer look at American society, and his work began to be acerbic in its satire and mockery. He delved into deeper social problems and tries to expose them as a social commentator. So he changed his writing styles from early teased humor to biting satire. His works also became more acute and absurd.

3.2.1 Realistic reasons for the change in Mark Twain’s writing style

There are two particularly essential reasons for Mark Twain's change in style. One is the social cause, the other is his own experience. First of all, the United States in the 19th century was in the period of development from liberal capitalism to imperialism. This led to the prevalence of money worship in American society at that time. Many people got caught up in the gold rush. Mark Twain was not able to escape the dream of wealth. As a journalist, Mark Twain ploughed all his savings into shares in silver mines. With the rapid rise of the stock market, Mark Twain was so content with his luxurious life that he stopped working as a journalist. But the good times didn't last long. The market's enthusiasm for silver stocks was vanished, and the share price has fallen sharply. Mark Twain became penniless and nearly bankrupt. Forced to make a living, Mark Twain returned to his old job and wrote works like The Million Pound Note (1893). Bewitched by the gold rush, Mark Twain also became more sober and began his biting satire of society and humanity.

3.2.2 The humor in Mark Twain’s later works totally reveals acrimony and satire

There are a lot of absurd plots in The Million Pound Note (1893). At first the rich brothers gave the penniless Henry a one-million-pound note and asked him to return it exactly as it was a month later. And all they did was making a bet. First of all, there is no note in denominations as high as one million pounds. What‘s more, there is no way to give a million pounds to a stranger without any guarantee. Exaggerating the denomination of notes was to satirize the money-oriented American society at that time. And betting means that money worship led the society to become a heaven for the rich and a hell for the poor. The rich regarded the poor as the objects of their amusement.

When Henry came to the tailor’s, the waiter, Todd, looked at his clothes and looked down upon him. Unable to bear Tod’s scorn, Henry defiantly offered his note. And Todd didn't make Henry disappointed. As Todd looked at the note, he smiled broadly. The smile seemed to freeze on his face. And the wrinkles show up like gullies. When the boss saw the note, he asked Todd that, “let the little clients wait and remember the gentleman's address.” This paragraph describes that when he curried favor with the rich people, the boss's obsequious expression was very profoundly. Mark Twain compared Todd’s appearance to the stench of maggots everywhere, which showed his contempt for snobs.

Henry was transformed by the taste of being flattered at the tailor’s. He was no longer the poor but honest and young man who would not keep his money for himself. He liked everything that money brought him -- fame, status, etc. He was respected and valued. Henry is immersed in the love between him and Portia, and ignored to the bitter experience of his good friend Lloyd. It was not until Lloyd sighed the furnishings and luxuries of the hotel that Henry realized he was deeply in debt and broke. A life of luxury blinded both Henry’s eyes and his heart. Money worship made Henry lose himself and his most important quality. It was a hard loss for Henry to make up. In this way, Mark Twain ridiculed Henry for being penny wise and pound foolish and losing his true nature.

4. Conclusion

With his great works, Mark Twain pushed American realism literature to the peak of the world in the 19th century, which also established his unshakable position in the history of American literature and even the history of world literature. Mark Twain’s creative practice has a profound influence on the literature of later generations, which is mainly reflected on the unique style of his works. 

The significance of this research is to explore Mark Twain’s humor in different periods and understand the reasons for his change, as well as know the significance of Mark Twain’s humor and apply this humorous wisdom to our study and life.

In Mark Twain’s humorous art, the most important is comic humor and satirical humor, this thesis studied his pure comedy humor in the early works, which gradually developed to comic humor and satirical humor in the middle and later period, through his three works. The political satire and humor combined with strong emotion of love and hate humor that is also why his humor art is original, exemplary, and timeless. He is truly a master of humor in the world. Mark Twain’s humor is a kind of humor which is built on the deep insight of the world and human beings. It is a kind of humor that combines the wisdom of philosophers, the imagination of artists and the penetrating humor of social critics. His works are based on rich thoughts, in the form of witty words, and full of profound philosophy and strong artistic appeal. Because of the unique art of humor and satire, Mark Twain’s works, no matter how long they last, will be of great charm and leave a valuable literary wealth for the world literary world.

References

Cunliffe, M. (1986). The Literature of the United States. NY: Penguin

Florence, D. (1997). Persona and humor in Mark Twain’s early writings. American Literature, 69(2), 419-420.

Howells, W. D. (1910). My Mark Twain. NY: Harperamp; Brothers Publisher.

Phelps, W. L. (1907). Mark Twain. North America Review, (9), 33-37.

Twain, M. (1870). Running for Governor (1870). NY：Harper Collins.

Twain, M. (1885). The adventures of Huckleberry Finn. NY：Bantam USA.

Twain, M. (1893). The million pound note. (4^th. ed.) Nevada: The Commercial Press.

常耀信 (2004)， 《美国文学简史》。 天津：南开大学出版社。

陈孝英、郭远航、冯玉珠（1987）， 《幽默理论在当代世界》。新疆：新疆人民出版社。

康瑞军（2018）， 马克•吐温小说中的幽默与讽刺艺术， 《现代交际》， 9: 113-114。

李文俊（编）（2019），《马克•吐温 幽默小说》。上海：上海文艺出版社。

权立峰（2012）， 马克•吐温的幽默叙事研究，硕士学位论文，南京：南京大学出版社。

许汝沚（1981）， 真正的马克•吐温，《南京师院学报》，1: 70-78。

张玉梅（2004）， 不朽的马克•吐温——试析马克吐温的讽刺与幽默，硕士学位论文，吉林：吉林大学出版社。

郑克鲁（2008），《外国文学简明章程》。 武汉：华中师范大学出版社。

周静琼（2015），《十九世纪美国幽默与马克•吐温》 。 北京：人民出版社。

请支付后下载全文，论文总字数：28996字