论文总字数：36708字

摘 要

美国著名短篇小说家欧·亨利的作品以幽默讽刺的语言风格、曲折荒诞的故事情节和出人意料的结局见长。欧·亨利善于对生活中小人物的悲欢喜乐进行捕捉，描写的故事都是世态炎凉和人情冷暖，具有深刻的现实主义的意味，堪称是一面“纽约的镜子”。欧·亨利的幽默通过喜剧的形式和悲剧的内容表现出来，看似轻松的表达却隐藏着深刻的涵义，常常让读者感受“含泪的微笑”，并且体会到资本主义社会黑白颠倒的宿命精神。这些特点都赋予欧·亨利的作品浓郁的黑色幽默的艺术特点。本文将通过对欧·亨利几篇经典小说的分析，研究并鉴赏其作品中的黑色幽默。

关键词：欧·亨利 黑色幽默 艺术特点 欧·亨利式的结尾

1. Introduction

1.1 General introduction to the author

O’ Henry (1862-1910) is a famous American short story writer, known as the father of the modern American short novels, and he is praised as one of the three fathers of the world’s short story writers with Maupassant and Chekhov. He wrote more than three hundred novels all his life. These novels are the panorama of American society, showing the daily life of the American general public, and revealing the people’s joys and sorrows. O’ henry’s bumpy experience made his works a unique art. His novels have strange idea, humorous language, exaggerated and surreal plots and unexpected but understandable endings. These stories often give readers “a tearful smile”. His representative works include the The Gift of the Magi, Last Leaf, The Cop and the Anthem and After Twenty Years.

1.2 General Review of Black Humor

Black humor is a modernist fiction genre popular in the 1960s’ United States. In general, black humor is a kind of literary technic that uses comedy form to express the pessimistic contents. Among them, black refers to the scary and funny objective reality, and humor refers to the deliberate mockery and irony to the reality. Black humor abandons narrative principle of the traditional novels, abandons the traditional and rational grammar rules in the novel. On the contrary, black humor makes a novel scene be singularly extraordinary, the circumstance be weird, the character be comical and the language sharp. What’s more, black humor often uses comedy technique to build a tragedy effect.

Although black humor is a genre started by a specific era when the United States’ comprehensive national power had been enhanced significantly, its technique had begun to take shape in many O’ Henry’s novels. The times of O’ Henry was almost after the civil war when America’ monopoly capitalism had got further development because of the abolition of slavery, the Assart Colonization and the Second Industrial Revolution. But all these good aspects were not reflected in the ordinary people’s life in US. The gap between the rich and poor was widening; The underlying people’s life were miserable; Money worship was overflowing; Love, kinship, friendship and even faith that can show beauty became secondary by the impact of age. That gave O’ Henry best creative sources.

1.3 Black humor and O’ Henry’s Works

Black humor in O’ Henry’s works can be mainly summarized as the following points:

Humorous language. O’ Henry’s works often use common language, but he can indicate the identity of the characters and their mental changes by lightly brushing and then foiling a strong humorous atmosphere. In this way, readers would laugh for the funny story and feel bitterness for their tragic fate at the same time. Second, O’ Henry’s novels use a large number of methods such as hyperbole, metaphor, irony, pun, etc. These linguistic features are characterized by a relaxed tone. But in fact, the entire is just opposite to the reality. In this way, readers would deepen their impression.

Type of O’ Henry’s ending. O’ Henry often gives his own novel a surprising but reasonable ending and it is the ending that can perfectly reflect the theme. In The Gift of the Magi, a pair of young couples who love each other deeply respectively sell their most beautiful hair and the most precious gold watch to buy the platinum chain worthy of the watch and the beautiful hair comb worthy of the hair in order to give Christmas gifts for each other, but both finally became waste. This is one of the most typical examples.

The transition between tragedy and comedy. O’ Henry’s novels often make people unable to read the true emotion of the author. If we say that O’ Henry shows pity for the poor people, yet he is at the same time always ridiculous and fools with these poor people ruthlessly. If we say that his expression is to encourage and support the people’s struggle, the change of the plot also makes us stupefied, because their endings mostly departure from reader’s expectations.

Hidden criticism to the dark society. Realistic criticism is general for Modernism, but it can be black humor if this criticism is using a kind criticism full of sagacity. The criticism to American society contains bitter irony in a gently way. That is why O’ Henry used “the mirror of the New York” to replace “the guns to New York”, but it does not reduce the effect. Instead, readers have a fresh and intuitive feeling.

Word games. O’ Henry’s novels do not have obvious rationalism. For example, the leaf in Last Leaf can make a dying man get the hope of living. This story didn’t exist in reality but O’ Henry was able to create it. These word games break the inertia of the readers and inspire their interest.

Postmodernism of that era. Nowadays, we can notice that O’ Henry’s thoughts and techniques have been used for reference widely. But at the end of the 19^th century America, O’ Henry was a master of postmodernism. It is valuable that O’ Henry’s works reveal some thought of modern democracy. We might as well think O’ Henry is a crossing man, so we can find more magic elements in his work.

To sum up, the dark era and the pain life brought up O’ Henry’s black humor， which made him a bright star in the world history of literature forever.

1.4 The purpose of the paper

There is no doubt that O’ Henry’s classic works are very humorous, but there is more critical spirit and social significance worthy to explore. Although the aforementioned characteristics make his works be connected with black humor closely, people have paid little attention to this subject. If we begin our studies from the perspective of black humor, we will get more interesting or meaningful acquisition, which can provide more research direction for O’ Henry’ novels’ study. This paper will analyze some classic novels of O’ Henry, extract the black humor and the practical significance and share the sparkle of the novels with more readers.

1. Literature Review

Due to O’ Henry’s eminent literary status, scholars’ researches on O’ Henry’s novels in various countries and regions and in every age have been very great. As a Chinese student, to study foreign, original language is indispensable. Elected Stories by O’ Henry of Nanjing Yilin Press covers O’ Henry’s major works. The authentic reading experience helps me deepen the understanding to his creation thought.

In Fan Lin’s paper (2003), he mainly mentioned O’ Henry’s antithesis. For example, there is no need to write a huge picture of New York, but the author can only utilize one or two sides such as a beggar or a cop so that readers can gain a general understanding. He also mentioned that owing to the exquisite processing in the ending, O’ Henry’s story is really shocking. Traditional novels tend to let readers guess the ending early, but O’ Henry’s works positively would not be so. Since his works not only make the ending a peculiar but also sublimation theme. Then the property will get earth-shaking changes. In After Twenty Years, heartwarming friends are reunited but evolved into a ruthless arrest. Comedy turned into a tragedy all of a sudden.

According to Ruan Wenling’s paper (1997), “Into the Art World of O’ Henry”, I learned how to appreciate O’ Henry’s novels with a heart of pioneering and systematicness. Professor Ruan explored O’ Henry’s life and work from several angles. He put forward the idea that we should know the author first, know the novels later and finally realize the novels’ means. His paper made a distinction between the principal and the accidental and introduced “central character image” primarily. The paper combines the previous research results to analyze the black humor in some classic novels of O’ Henry.

In Guan Qiu’s paper (2011), O’ Henry’s characters and their features are analyzed. Guan Qiu takes up a thorough discussion upon the feature of the environment and the peanuts’ fate influenced by the social conditions. Depending on the characters’ personality and their ideology, he also explains the reason why the characters all have a miserable life. He thinks that the living conditions of the poor are mainly effected by two factors: one is the dark social reality objectively and the second is the resigned philosophy of the peanuts.

3. On the Black Humor in O’ Henry’s Classic Novels

The success of O’ Henry’s novels are mainly attributed to the unique style of his works. In the language characteristics, the structure, or the sense of contents, his works have shown obvious traces of Black Humor. This section contains five points: 1. The linguistic features; 2. Structure features; 3. Connotation of the story; 4. Character features; 5. Other features.

3.1 The linguistic features of O’ Henry’s novels

Language is the foundation of literature. O’ Henry is good at delineating social phenomena with an attitude of outlier. His writing seems to be succinct so that we can realize the story’s specific characteristics of the environment and the characters from a sentence or even a single word. We can also feel the cold humor that makes us in a distress situation from his one or two causal conversations.

3.1.1 Succinct and useful language

O’ Henry does not use large space to depict a certain environment or shape a certain character so as to get the effect of foiling atmosphere like some traditional novels. On the contrary, he treats words as the gold. He rarely describes the background detailedly, but he can clean all the conditions by a word or a single side of the thing. When the simple description gets the impact to make readers laugh, the people will find that there is also a kind of sadness appearing in heart at the same time. In this way, the story has had the feeling of black humor. Let’s imagine that an actor, not be given any introduction, comes on the stage and suddenly tumbles comically. Then we can’t help but to laugh. And when we see his old clothes and empty wallet, we will begin to feel depressed for him. O’ Henry does not give time to the audience for preparation because the humor comes so directly and leaves so quickly. This is the black humor under the action of language. It doesn’t give people a stirring intuitive feeling but gives the readers infinite aftertaste. Let’s see the following example.

“But as Soapy entered the restaurant door, the head waiter's eye fell upon his shabby trousers and old shoes. Strong hands turned him about and pushed him in silence and haste outinto the street.”(The Cop and the Anthem)

Soapy has begun his plan with full of anticipation, but he fails fastly in the moment he steps into the restaurant. There is no any reason or explanation from Soapy’s being penetrated by the clerk to his being pushed out of the restaurant. It is the abrupt dispose that makes the Soapy’s messive image be more remarkable. O’ Henry combines the humorous episode and the adversity of Soapy perfectly with a very few words. In this way black humor takes the place of simple humor.

3.1.2 The use of rhetorical devices

Metaphor, personification, and exaggeration can be seen everywhere in O’ Henry’s works. In common sense, the role of metaphor and personification is visualization and the effect of exaggeration is to emphasis. But in O’ Henry’s works, there are more factors of irony about these rhetorical devices. Black humor is thus called because the realism is hidden in the fanciful. Humorous story is often fictional, but O’ Henry’s humor is more convincing. His metaphor always can’t let readers feel vivid but notice a meaning of mockery. His personification can’t make the objective things become lively either. On the contrary, it actually makes the referenced one colder and stiffer. So does his exaggeration, which often plays a contrary role in the story, in order to highlight the author’s mood of helplessness.

”Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman. A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer.”（Last Leaf)

Brutal and deadly pandemic-pneumonia is an opposite thing with the human beings absolutely. But O’ Henry crowns pneumonia a title named “Mr”, representative of gentleman. Under normal circumstances, we will use some objective things to compare a cold-blooded person. And the person is the synonymous with kindness in traditional context. But in this story, the man becomes the embodiment of disease. O’ Henry’s black humor appears again. At that time when people’s basic medical security can’t be prevented, “Mr” is a word with derogatory color. The humor is wrought out of author’s technique of personification which has a rich meaning of irony: it expresses O’ Henry’s dissatisfaction with human’s depravity.

3.1.3 Dialogue with cold humor

Dialogues in many of O’ Henry’s works play an important role to promote the development of the story. What is valuable, O’ Henry does not add jokes on the dialogue deliberately for the reason that it will make the work flirtatious and lose the seriousness. What he uses is a cold attitude. He describes the dialogue blandly and soon lets this kind of wateriness become coldness. Then in the end, humor is reflected silently by this cold dialogue. When there appears contradictions in the dialogue between characters, the author never shows his corresponding attitude as if the dialogue does not represent his real intention. Oppositely, O’ Henry will imply the appearance of tragedy in a latter story. And when there is a bitter dialogue containing bitterness, O’ Henry gives great hope to the poor man.

“And your pictures? Did you sell and to that man from Peoria?"

"Well, your general with his Clementina is an invention, and so is my man from Peoria." （A Service of Love)

The lie between the husband and the wife is demolished, both of whom feel embarrassed. This is supposed that we can’t see the humor, but O’ Henry gives a sense of humor to the characters, which reflects the author’s praise of the kind couple. On the other hand, although the couple love each other deeply, what they experience makes touches the readers and highlights of their impoverished life. The humor here has both warmth and bitterness and conforms to the standard of black humor.

3.2 The structure features

The type of O’ Henry’s ending is the iconic feature of his works. Because it is different from the previous structure which has a climax first and an ending after the climax, it always leaves the climax to the last paragraph or the last sentence. However, O’ Henry’s bedding of story is not irrelevant, but is closely related to the emergence of the later climax.

3.2.1 Type of O’ Henry’s ending

The ending of O’ Henry is the sublimation of his novels. His ending often has unexpected coincidence with the fate’s arrangement, which makes the readers feel the inevitability after a moment of being stunned. This structure arrangement is the concentrated reflection of the artistic style of black humor. If the story develops flatly, we may only see the “black”, namely the collapse of human sentiment and the darkness of the capitalist society. But when O’ Henry gives the uncertainty story a shocking ending, readers can see the wisdom of fate and the fact that a worm’s destiny is irreversible. This kind of bitter humor is hard to forget. O’ Henry combines the “humor” and “black” perfectly, which serves two chief roles: 1. The deepening contradiction of the subject matter; 2. Conveying a more profound reality of social life.

"Bob: I was at the appointed place on time. When you struck the match to light your cigar I saw it was the face of the man wanted in Chicago. Somehow I couldn't do it myself, so I went around and got a plain clothes man to do the job. JIMMY."(After Twenty Years)

After 20 years, the friends’ reunion becomes a meeting between a police and a suspect. Bob’s former friend has turned out to be a kop who comes to inform him of his arrest, and Jimmy’s friend becomes a suspect with criminality. O’ Henry breaks the readers’ expectation and leaves a regret and incomprehension. Why can the police be so ruthless and why is Bob’s success owed to crime? Under the mask of humor, the author expresses a veiled dissatisfaction to the society. Just like the police, he has a change from a sunny boy to a ruthless tool of law enforcement.

3.2.2 Artful foreshadowing

Another success of O’ Henry’s novels is that even though a novel has an amazing ending, the readers even can find the answer in the former paper after a brief vacant. It is because O’ Henry has described the reasonable kernel of life in the part before the ending. We can find inkling in many of the seemingly boring words. This is also a kind technique of black humor.

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