欧亨利短篇小说的艺术特色分析
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关键词：欧·亨利情节戏剧性意外幽默
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欧亨利短篇小说的艺术特色分析 摘要：美国作家欧·亨利是一位独具风格的短篇小说家，他的作品有独特的艺术技巧，不仅从普通生活中选取平凡素材，以小见大，从平常事件中开掘主题，反映出不平常的社会意义。还在于以幽默的喜剧手法表现悲剧性的内容，用作品情节的巧合增强戏剧性。更在于他独特的艺术结构、“欧·亨利式的结尾”。以及独具特色的语言艺术。 关键词：欧·亨利；情节；戏剧性；意外；幽默 十九世纪美国作家欧·亨利（1862—1910）以他情节生动、笔调幽默的作品，独树一帜，脍炙人口，成为美国现当代短篇小说的奠基人和世界短篇小说三大师之一。欧·亨利一生写下将近三百篇短篇小说和一部长篇小说。他深刻地认识到资本主义制度的腐朽、道德的虚伪、贫富的悬殊、人与人之间相互倾轧……许多作品对此作了充分的揭露和讽刺，批判了当时社会中不合理的现象。同时，对广大下层的“小人物”、普通人的灾难、疾苦寄予满腔的同情。正如列夫·托尔斯泰所说：“那是从他所经历的生活得来的果实，正如母亲的怀胎一样”。[1]但要获得巨大艺术效果，“从总的方面来看，整个情节就是作品整个的生命，它无疑是很重要的”。[2]本文试从欧·亨利短篇小说的艺术技巧方面作一番探索。 欧·亨利丰富的生活阅历和卓越的艺术天才使他的小说不仅内容多采多姿，而且具有独特的艺术技巧，在艺术上有其独创之处。欧·亨利从他丰富的生活库藏中提炼素材，在他的短篇小说中反映了美国二十世纪初各方面的社会生活，但一般说他并没有直接去描写社会的重大题材，而是以他洞察幽微的观察力，从普通生活中选取平凡的素材，使普通的生活，看来似乎信手拈来的平凡素材，经过他丰富的生活、新颖的智慧，“借一斑略知全豹，以一目尽传精神”，以小见大，宛如一只精巧的万花筒，从各个不同角度折射出五光十色的社会内容，从平常事件中开掘主题，反映出不平常的社会意义。在手法运用上，通过人物自身的生活、遭遇，以及相互之间的关系，一次次发生冲突，充分揭示人物性格和命运。《最后一片叶子》描写美国一个城市的贫民窟，住着一些贫病交加的艺术家，其中有一位女画家琼西患了严重的肺炎。当她生命垂危时，望着窗外墙上的青藤，在风雨吹打下，叶子一片片飘落，她计算着等最后一片叶子掉下来，自己就要离开这人间。一夜风雨，那片藤叶仍然在那里，使琼西重新燃起生命的火焰。而那片叶子是老画家贝尔先生，在风雨交加的夜晚，用生命画出来的，自己却因此患肺炎而去世。这篇小说写出两代人的友谊和命运，赞美了主人公热爱生活，舍己为人的感人事迹。《麦琪的礼物》写的是家庭琐事，从一对贫贱夫妻互赠圣诞节礼物的小事中看出了小人物的人性美。从《没有完的故事》对一个无依无靠的弱女子参加一次约会的描写中，我们看出了资本主义社会小人物的贫困生活和悲剧命运。《黄雀在后》写一个骗子、一个强盗和一个金融家的日常活动。挫折的命运使他们暂时结成盟友，但当他们的生活一旦安定下来便勾心斗角。强盗用抢来的钱开办赌馆，骗子就用诡计把强盗的钱骗过来，而当骗子想发大财买了金矿股票后，又发现这些骗人的股票是金融家发行的。从这日常生活的描写中巧妙地说明了美国金融家是披着文明外衣的骗子、强盗，其狡诈的手段残酷的本性是远远胜过骗子、强盗的。 仅仅是一个平凡的故事，尽管这一故事是多么新鲜、多么曲折生动，是不能打动读者的心灵的。欧·亨利短篇小说之所以具有强大的艺术魅力，是与作品情节的戏剧性和独特的结构艺术分不开的。 在资本主义的金钱世界里，贫困和失业是小人物的天生伴侣，悲剧时时在普通劳动者的生活中产生。作为受过美国幽默文学传统熏陶的作家，欧·亨利善于抓住故事情节中的戏剧性，从“为世人所看得见的笑料”中看到“为世人所看不见的眼泪”，以幽默的喜剧手法表现悲剧性的内容，从而增强作品的戏剧效果，加强作品的感染力量。大量运用情节的巧合。巧合，即偶然性。巴尔扎克指出：“偶然是世界上最伟大的小说家，若它思泉涌，只要研究偶然就行”。[3]《麦琪的礼物》中的德拉夫妇，过圣诞节时穷得只有一块八毛七分钱，为了爱情双方都各自卖掉最宝贵的东西为对方买心爱的礼物，妻子德拉卖掉了金发，给丈夫买了表链；而丈夫杰姆则卖掉了金表，给妻子买了发梳。当俩人拿出礼物交换时，两件礼物却都成了废品。《爱的牺牲》中的乔夫妇在生活极端困窘的情况下，也为了对方的艺术，各自作出自我牺牲，以撒谎蒙骗对方。作者在表现这两对夫妇的生活时抓住戏剧性的场面，绘声绘形地进行细致的描写，在幽默风趣的笔调中充满着眼泪和酸辛。这就给读者以大有回味的余地。 欧·亨利作品情节的戏剧性又是与他独特的艺术结构分不开的。从总体布局方式看欧·亨利常用灵活多变、波浪式的结构来展开故事情节。我们来分析《警察和赞美诗》，流浪汉苏贝，为了躲避衣食无着、无家可归的冬天，一心想让警察抓进监狱，六次“违法乱纪”。作者是如何安排小说的情节的呢？苏比的六次活动，两次进饭馆，两次捣乱破坏秩序，一次调戏妇女，一次公开“偷伞”。看来六件事各不相关，似乎散乱无章，实则紧紧联系，有起有伏，层层递进，都贯串着一个目的，有意想要触犯刑律，但都未被惩罚。当他不想再做坏事，决心重新开始生活时候，却真的被捕了。由此可见，欧·亨利作品的情节结构连绵起伏，迂回曲折。使读者在情节的海洋中跌宕，产生“欲知下事如何”的悬念感。可谓大手笔的妙处。 欧·亨利的作品结尾，往往采用“突转”的方式，使故事情节异峰突起，引起人们的惊愕。评论家称之为“欧·亨利式的结尾”。这就是当读者被曲折生动的故事情节所吸引，并顺着情节发展的线路思索以为可以测知故事的结局时，作者却将笔锋一转，来一个一百八十度的大转弯，出现一个意料不到的结尾，让读者惊愕，而在惊愕之余，细细品味，却不能不承认其合情合理。读了《警察和赞美诗》，读者一定会被苏贝犯罪的喜剧情节所吸引。冬天就要到来了，流浪汉苏贝无处容身，只好想方设法犯罪，以便到牢狱里去过冬。他想先到饭馆去白吃一顿，满希望“可以安安静静不吵闹地给交到警察手里”，谁知一进门就给眼光锐利的侍者一把撵到人行道上。他又拿起一块石头砸烂商店的玻璃窗，站着不走，但警察来了，却放下他不管，去追其他不相干的人。最后，他又去勾引外表文雅的少妇，谁知容貌端庄的被调戏者却是妓女，竟反过来勾引他。在种种计划落空之后，他来到一个僻静处所，听到教堂里送出来的赞美诗的乐声，“他的灵魂突然www.benkelunwen.cn起了奇妙的变化”，决心“做一个顶天立地的人”。故事看来就此结束了，可作家笔锋一转，“苏贝觉得有一只手按在他的胳臂上。他霍地扭过头，看到了一个警察的阔脸。”结果，他被捕了，被判处监禁三个月。试想一下，如果当苏贝“灵魂突然起了奇妙的变化”时刹尾，这篇作品还有多少社会意义呢？正是这笔锋一转，却引起了读者深沉的思考，资本主义制度与人性的对立、美国社会的悲剧才被巧妙地显示出来。《麦琪的礼物》中，当夫妻俩相互赠送礼物时，各自却把心爱的东西卖掉。《最后一片叶子》中的女画家，当她望着窗外永不凋谢的落叶，“奇迹”出现了，鼓起她生活的勇气，而老画家却离开了人间……欧·亨利的许多作品结尾都是使主人公的命运、愿望，在不同的处境中朝着相反的方向急剧转变，决定了作品的全局性基调。 这种欧·亨利式的结尾的作用在于： 首先，它照亮了人物心灵中的人情。欧·亨利所描写的“小人物”，由于社会冷酷、生活贫困、穷愁潦倒，但是，他们并没有自甘沉沦，即使在走投无路的困境下，也还是坚持活下去，不丧失人应有的本性——人情。善良、贤惠、舍己为人，揭示了人性之美。参考文献： 1 於奇：英美文学赏析(第三版)[M].郑州:河南大学出版社,2008.
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第二篇：修改后完整版论文：欧亨利短篇小说艺术特色
本科生毕业论文
题 目： O·Henry’s Artistic
Characteristics in His Short Stories
欧亨利短篇小说艺术特色
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THE SYNTAX OF NOUN PHRASES
THESIS
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for
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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。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
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Abstract
O. 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 paper 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
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Contents
摘 要 ……………………………………………………………….i Abstract …………………………………………….……….………..ii
Introduction ……………………………………...………..1
Chapter 1 Lively Characters…..…………….………...………...3
1.1 Characters and Techniques of Portraying Them…..……….3
1.1.1 Various Characters...……………………….……………. 3
1.1.2 Techniques of Portraying Characters……………………….4
1.2 Characters Work on Deepening the Role and Significance of the
Subject……………………………………………………..........10 Chapter2 Humorous Style……….………….………………...14
2.1 Humorous Language…....…………………………....................14
2.2 Humorous Plot…………………………………………................17 Chapter 3 O·Henry-Style Ending………………………...........20
3.1 Tearful Smile………………………………………………………21
3.2 Smiles Full of Tears………………………………………………..24 Conclusion…………………….…………………………………28 Bibliography…………………………………..………………………31 Acknowledgements
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Introduction
O·Henry is commonly associated with the short story and the masterful ironic “O· Henry Twist”. A prolific writer, O·Henry 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 O·Henry with abundant material for writing. The tragedy 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. O·Henry’s 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 sentiment. Drawing directly on his experiences, he combined realism with a world of his own. Commonly recurring themes in O·Henry’s short stories are those of deception, mistaken identity, the effect of coincidence, the inexorable nature of fate, and the resolution of seemingly insurmountable difficulties separating two lovers.
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Over recent hundreds of years, works of O·Henry’s have been published for several editions, and always attracting a great number of readers. O·Henry?s 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 O·Henry’s 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 strike us.
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Chapter 1
Lively Characters
1.1 Characters and Techniques of Portraying Them
1.1.1 Various Characters
O·Henry’s complicated living experiences, which make him know people’s 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 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 ·Henry’s 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·Henry’s 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 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 people’s lifestyle very
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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 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 aristocratic 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 ordinary 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 Techniques of Portraying Characters
O·Henry 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 about a young married couple, each of whom sells a treasured possession to
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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 to buy the platinum chain for her husband Jim’s 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 wife’s hair. O·Henry builds up, to his surprise, twist very artfully, and with deft touches he elicits the reader’s admiration and sympathy for the young couple whose love for each other is more than everything. What’s 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 with 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 O·Henry’s style.
Besides 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, 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
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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 important 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 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 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’s.
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 Bilbro went to the Justice of the Peace Benaja Widdup’s 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 the golden rule”. The irony here discloses the essence of the laws in the capital society. The laws were tools for the capitalists to
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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 dollars to afford his wife’s 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 Widdup?s) next words he achieve (as his thought ran) with either great crowd of the world?s sympathizers or the little crowd of its great financiers.”(Henry 1995:45) This paragraph is to analyze the purpose of the officer’s 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. 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 the 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 words 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
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together to pop out the characteristics. What’s more, his metaphor always brings something new and funny to the readers. That’s O·Henry’s style.
The Cop and the Anthem is a story about a street loafer’s 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 while the poor suffered cold or even starvation. The protagonist, Soapy, was a jobless, homeless and penniless street loafer. He wanted to go to Blackwell’s, 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 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 island to the “winter refuge”,(33) the policemen to the “law?s 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 widespread disorder and chaos, and where people felt displaced yet trapped and finally they surrendered. (Chen, 2002) The author’s words are full of sympathy for Soapy’ fate.
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Simile is an explicit comparison between two things using “like” or “as”. (Ross, 2007) It can be seen everywhere in O·Henry’s works. Various characters, multifarious scenery and familiar things and phenomenon in O·Henry?s 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. O·Henry’s simile is easy and casual, but it is the high refining of the life experiences, 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 “the 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” (Henry 1995:25) when he saw his wife, Della’s hair. And then he describes the moved and astonished wife “like a little singed cat and cried, ?Oh, oh!’”(25) 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 eaten its nut to a hollow shell and now sought to fill the vacancy with edible 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
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with fur. Such an indescribable and fancy appearance makes us feel 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·Henry’s 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 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
O·Henry’s sympathy for the poor social underdogs, is highlighted as
the keynote of his works. 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 discloses the unfair,
unreasonable and abnormal fate of the “small potatoes” 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· Henry’s short stories is the painstaking characterization of these
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“small potatoes”.
Johnsy and Sue in The Last Leaf present 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 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 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 beings 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; and they realize their own aims by hook and crook etc. Their evil deeds make the world vicious. By exposing the human defects and the dark side of the world, O·Henry wants to awaken people’s conscience and deepest desire for all good things, so that people can use their efforts to save and cleanse the whole
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world.
In fact, there is not any dynamic love or exciting adventures in Henry’s book. They are some warm and compact stories, which moved readers to laughter and sometimes tears. And that is where the charm of O·Henry’s novels lies. Without doubt, O·Henry 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 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 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 society.
These living and vivid characters bear long-living artistic charm and deepen the social significance of the works, thus making his works transpire intense human glamour.
Henry is really a master of short story. His writing style is so unique that many people like reading his stories. Various characters were successfully figured to reflect the situation of the society at that time. His
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stories came from the real life but were more artful than the real life. O· Henry not only widened the experience of his readers, but he restated the verities which exist wherever people continue to strive for truth and beauty in life. He was never unsympathetic, except with those who sought to deprive others of their rights as human beings, and his writings have in them feelings of compassion for the weakness of man, which, joined with his remarkable ability of expression, make his stories at their best promote the furtherance of those ideals which still tend to command the allegiance of civilized men.
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Chapter 2
Humorous Style
The most significant characteristic of O·Henry’s language is his humor. We found Henry James Forman, one of the editorial staff of the North American Review, declared, “His writes with the skill of Maupassant, and with a humor that Maupassant never dreamed of.” (Forman, 1908:783)
Humor is one of the traditions in American literature. Since Washington Irving, many authors had been skilled in writing those funny but meaningful stories. Washington Irving only used light satire to show his well-intentioned irony, while Mark Twain revealed the truth of life with lots of slang words, funny and witty remarks and inflated language. O·Henry was a little different because of his own tortuous experiences and the influence from the authors of his age. He often poked good-natured fun at human follies, but there was no malice in his humor.
2.1 Humorous Language
The language used in his works is humorous and exaggerating. His
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manner is usually that of garrulous taleteller, and his style is almost invariably breezy, flippant, and slangy, with puns, malapropisms, and big words used for humorous effect. It can be clearly seen when we read one of his short stories The Cop and the Anthem. The story begins as follows: “On his bench in Madison Square Soapy moved uneasily. When wild geese honk high of nights, and when women without sealskin coats grow kind to their husbands, and when Soapy moves uneasily on his bench in the park, you may know that winter is near at hand.” (Henry, 1995:32) These few words tell us not only the background of the hero Soapy but also the setting of the story, and most importantly, the scene of humor is implied between the lines. In the following paragraphs, when “A dead leaf fell in Soapy?s lap”, (32) he thought “That was Jack Frost?s card” (32)and “Jack is kind to the regular denizens of Madison Square, and gives fair warning of his annual call.”(32) Then, “At the corners of four streets he hands his pasteboard to the North Wind, footman of the mansion of All Outdoors, so that the inhabitants may make ready”, (33) so Soapy’s mind became “cognizant of the fact that the time had come for him to resolve himself into a singular Committee of Ways and Means to against the coming rigor”. (33) But, “The hibernatorial ambitions of Soapy were not of the highest,” (33) and “in them were no considerations of Mediterranean cruises, of soporific Southern skies or drifting in the Vesuvian Bay. Three months on the Island was what his soul craved,”
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(33)because “For years the hospitable Blackwell?s had been his winter quarters.”(34) There he could spend “Three months of assured board and bed congenial company, safe from Boreas and bluecoats”, (34) which “seemed to Soapy is the essence of things desirable”.(34) Furthermore, in Soapy’s opinion, comparatively speaking, “the Law was more benign than Philanthropy” (35)because “to one of Soapy?s proud spirit the gifts of charity are encumbered. If not in coin you must pay in humiliation of spirit for every benefit received at the hands of philanthropy.” As “Caesar had his Brutus, every bed of charity must have its toll of a bath, every loaf of bread its compensation of a private and personal inquisition”, (35) it is to be “a guest of the law, which though, conducted by rules, does not meddle unduly with a gentleman?s private affairs”.(35) Unfortunately, after he tried every means to make trouble in order to be arrested by the police to be sent to “the Island”,(32) he failed to cause the attention of the policemen because “they seemed to regard him as king who could not do wrong.” (Henry, 1995: 32-36)
Such examples can be found throughout the story. These sentences seem to be talked about very delightfully and casually to make the story apparent to be a comedy. But meanwhile, we can also feel the sadness and helplessness of the hero Soapy. Therefore, we cannot help laughing, but with pitiful tears. O·Henry was an inveterate story-teller, seemingly purely from the pleasure of it, but he never told a vulgar joke, and as
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much as he loved humor he would not sacrifice decency for its sake. And that’s what is called O·Henry’s humor. Soapy ’s misfortune is one typical story told by O·Henry in his unique way, and the effect is that we may smile with tears while turning his pages.
2.2 Humorous Plot
There is another way for O·Henry to show his unique humour, and that lies in the plot of his stories.
Enormously interested in people, O·Henry is capable of swift and compassionate insights into the average persons. He is a good reporter with a keen eye for significant details. Observing daily with his acute eyes and ears the surroundings and throng’s appearances and behaviors, and accumulating attentively his experience and observation, O·Henry is adept in capturing dramatic events and incidents from everyday life. The characters in his stories are from all trades and professions he encountered, most of whom are those from low social class. O·Henry is a technical artist in plot structure. His stories always focus on two or three individuals, inventing imaginary situations and predicaments for them, and working out ingeniously unexpected solutions for their problems. His suggestive description about the characters just from one fine view is capable of showing vividly their real features and awkward positions. Even when choosing plots to reflect the social background, O·Henry still
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inclines to pick those incidents or fragments from daily life of a few people, instead of directly describing the significant events in the social life.
The plot of The Gift of the Magi is a kind of bitter humor. In order to give each other a best Christmas present, the hero Jim and the heroin Della did not hesitate to give up their most precious possessions, resulting in the uselessness of their presents, which makes us smile bitterly after reading. The plot of The Cop and the Anthem bares many similarities with that of The Gift of the Magi. The hero Soapy wants to be put into prison to live through the freezing winter. Though he makes every effort to achieve his purpose, he failed. But when he decides to give up evil and return to good, he becomes arrested, letting us not know whether to laugh or to cry. In The Ransom of the Red Chief, the bandit intends to kidnap a kid for ransom. However, he is controlled by the kid in reverse. He must pay back the money to settle up this farce. In this story, roles are reversed. Two adults are defeated by a child which is humorous and satirical. The handbook in The Handbook of Hymen is the fountain of all the laughing stocks. The protagonist in the story successfully deceives Mrs. Sampson into being fond of “him” in accordance with the instructions in the handbook. However, one day the protagonist wants to save Mrs. Sampson who gets choked for coal gas, but makes himself a fool for misunderstanding the information in the handbook. There are full of
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humorous details. The humorous significance created in the plot itself provides us much food for thought.
O·Henry uses his unique skills to present the story in such an ingenious way and creates the complicated plots to make the readers not clear at a glance. In his works he arranges a series of conflicts that are unraveled at the end, and woven into the main thread of the story to demonstrate great artistry and possess strong artistic charm and achieve a fascinating result. For this reason, O·Henry introduces to the readers his unique “twist ending”.
Subjectivity of delineation makes author’s characters interesting chiefly as they reveal his views of life, and interest in characters is overshadowed by interest in plots. But for briskness, sympathy and humor of the characterization, O·Henry has few peers. His wit and verbal trickery, his fondness of puns, words coinages, sophistries, slangs and malapropism of all sorts, appropriately sprinkled in the speech of all his romanticized types—even the dregs of humanity—make the characters seem authentic, funny and important at the same time. Just as his plot and his characters are humorous in conception and in treatment, the striking trait of O·Henry as a stylist is humor.
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Chapter 3 O·Henry-Style Ending
“O·Henry-style ending” usually refers to the great master of short stories, often in the plot at the end of the article so that the psychological sudden unexpected changes occur, or making sharp reversal of the hero’s fate and the unexpected results, but within reason, in line with real life, resulting in a unique artistic charm. The end of the art, in the O·Henry-style works is fully manifested.
O·Henry is a genius at contriving the surprising but logical ending, which is also called the twist ending. With the characters’ mental status or fate changed greatly, the whole passage is suddenly endowed with a great charm because the sudden change has caused a long and deep consideration of the situation or problem the article has revealed. In O·Henry’s short stories, the extraordinary compression of dialogues and descriptive details often trips the careless readers into making wrong
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assumptions. The conclusion is an enigma until one reads the last sentence of his stories. There are a few explanations. The story is finished shortly after unexpected surprise comes. O·Henry is such a master of unexpected ending that one must admire his skills. Although these endings are unexpected, the author never makes any statements in the body of these stories that can be held against them. On the contrary, the body is a careful preparation for the surprising endings.
3.1 Tearful Smile
O·Henry’s best-loved story The Last Leaf is a significant embodiment of the author’s super skill of making surprising but logical ending, which was called “tearful smile”.
It is a story of some ordinary people. In “colony”(51) Washington where some poor artists lived, pneumonia was epidemic. The young artist, Johnsy, “a mite of a little woman with blood thinned by Californian zephyrs”(51) was smote by epidemic. “She lay, scarcely moving”,(51) looking at the blank side of the next brick house, and counting the leaves on the ivy vine outside the window which were stricken by the cold breath of autumn. She thought herself just like a weary leaf and said “when the last leaf falls, I must go, too” . (51)Life was tough, and Johnsy was pessimistic, indulged in the abyss of despair, even her most significant dream of painting the Bay of Naples some day couldn’t arouse her desire for survival. The doctor, consequently, thought she had one
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chance in ten to get well, “and that chance is for her to want to live”.(Henry 1995: 51-55)
Johnsy’s bosom friend—Sue, getting to know her friend’s weakness, “cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp”.(52) But to conceal her sadness, “she swaggered into Johnsy?s room with her drawing-board, whistling ragtime”.(52) Thinking Johnsy was asleep, “Sue stopped whistling” . (53)When she found that Johnsy wanted to die, she had to make a white lie that Johnsy’s chances for getting well were “ten to one”.
(52) However, Johnsy was untouched by Sue’s painstaking efforts. She had made up her mind to go away with the last leaf of the ivy vine.
Old Behrman, an old artist, who lived on the ground floor beneath them, knew what Johnsy thought. “With his red eyes plainly streaming”,
(53)he shouted his contempt and derision for Johnsy’s “idiotic imaginings”.(53) He, though “a failure in art”,(52) had been always about to paint a masterpiece, and promised to help Johnsy move out of such a terrible place.
“A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow” .(52) The leaves on the ivy vine went more and more. Would the last leaf fall? What would happen to the poor mite? O·Henry continued the story.
“But, lo! after the beating rain and fierce gust of wind that had endured through the livelong night, there stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last on the vine”.(55)
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It was really an unbelievable miracle! But Johnsy believed that it would fall, and she would die at the same time. When reading the story here, readers will have the same thought as Johnsy’s. But “the day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall”. (55)
The whole night passed with wind and rain. Can’t the last leaf fall? Readers hold a firm belief that in the next morning the leaf must fall, and the girl must die. However, when it was light enough, when the shade was raised, Johnsy found “the ivy leaf was still there”.(55)
Johnsy was touched by the last leaf; she became convinced that “it is a sin to want to die”.(56) The doctor came and said Johnsy had “even chances” to recover. However, he continued: “now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman…Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him…”(56)
At the end of the story, what Sue told Johnsy exerted a great impact on the readers.
“Mr. Behrman died of pneumonia today in the hospital. He was ill only two days…Look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn?t you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it?s Behrman?s masterpiece—he painted it there the night that the last leaf fall” .(56)
The real leaf fell, but the false left; Johnsy didn’t die, but the old
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artist went away. Not a little more ink shows sympathy, but readers can’t help being moved by the tender love and the true friendship among the poor artists. Henry didn’t describe how old Behrman drew the last leaf on the wall on such a dreadful night, but readers can imagine it through the limited description of the last leaf.
In the first large part, the author puts more ink to draw the readers’ attention to what Johnsy’s end was and the continually falling leaves, while the result was the exchanges of the true and the false, life and death. He portrays the plot in undulation and thrilling tone. Readers can’t help admiring such effect of concentrated attack in the story’s ending.
This is an anthem of humanity and friendship. The author exposes the original appearance of people’s hearts in this way. In this non-human nature of the soil, a little bland but refreshing flower prospers. The flower represents humanity and hope, allowing people to remember the true meaning of love.
We smile for Johnsy’s rebirth, cry for Behrman’s death but we are moved by his death at the same time. We are pleased for Johnsy’s rebirth with the sadness of losing Behrman. We smile with tears.
Many other O·Henry’s works such as The Gift of the Magi are in this style.
3.2 Smiles Full of Tears
There is another type of this ending. There is some kind of people
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who do something that we feel funny and absurd, but necessary as to them. They have no choice. We feel sympathetic to witness their ridiculous deeds with our tears, but at the same time we can not help smiling at their absurdity. Soapy in The Cop and the Anthem is just this kind of person.
Soapy, a homeless tramp, deciding to be sent to the hospitable Blackwell’s prison on the Island which he called his winter quarter against the rigor and the hunger, attempted to practice several illegal activities for the purpose of “wooing capture”; but the cop, who stood nearly when Soapy was trying to attract his attention by his anti-law behaviors, paid no special attention to Soapy every time, even “seemed to regard him as a being who would do no wrong”.(O·Henry 65) Developing up here, the story must give the reader the conclusion that Soapy had to go back disappointedly to his home—a park bench—in Madison Square. On his way, the sweet music of anthem from the church played by the organist and the beautiful moonlight scenery “wrought a sudden and wonderful change in his soul”(65), he made up his mind to “pull himself out of the mire”(65) and “make a man of himself again”(65). Moving like this, the plot is not completely understandable at once. When the reader is puzzled about the use and meaning of growing plot, and just while Soapy was planning his tomorrow’s action for being “some body in the world”,(68) an unforeseen turn of event loomed abruptly: He was
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arrested because a police thought him doubtful, and the next day he was sentenced to “three months on the Island”.(68)
Such a big surprise O·Henry gave to the readers that readers may even can’t understand what happened at once. The short ending contained too many feelings and too much surprise. Can you call it a tragedy with a comedy or a comedy with a tragedy? Should readers feel happy for Soapy or sad for him? It’s really “smiles full of tears”.
Anthem, a tool for saving one’s soul in the capitalist society, happened to save a loafer’s soul in a special situation. Policeman, a national machine for defending a society’s security, ruined the hero’s future who was just saved by Anthem at last. This result exactly shows O· Henry’s purpose of exposing the dark capitalist society and the hypocritical capitalistic system deeply.
We deeply admire O·Henry’s astonishing contrivance of tricky ending which reveals rigorously the real facts of reversal between truth and falsehood in the capitalist society which confuses right and wrong.
O·Henry’s short stories which extol the beauty of humanity give undue emphasis to tragic ending, give rise to sympathy and meditation, and give hope and brightness to people in the meantime. It shines human virtues, making the flower of humanity prosperous in every reader’s heart. Moreover, there is no lack of sarcasm and criticism to the unfairness of the society. Humor, shrewdness and sarcasm often lead to readers’
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laughter even belly laughter, but after laughing, what can they realize? O· Henry describes the millions of common people’s fate with his sympathy for them, in the position of a soldier of humanitarianism. “Tearful smiles” show his pity and praise for the common people; “smiles full of tears” show his anger to the hideous society.
Unexpectedness of ending is the most striking and consistently commented on feature of his stories. The unexpectedness, moreover, is almost invariable of the “happy ending” variety (See, as a good example of this, the ending of the story The Skylight Room). For O·Henry this quality of the surprise or contrary to expectation, it appears in a sort of lateral way, as if it popped out from around the corner; and it is only then that readers realize that certain details here and there have hinted at the possibility of such an ending. This is the surprise of parody, a trick surprise which plays on the reader?s literary expectations, throwing him off-center and very nearly mocking him. He does not even set out false tricks as is commonly done in mystery stories, but operates with the help of ambiguities, half-statements or barely noticeable details which turn out at the end to have been highly significant .(Ejxenbaum, 1968:21-22)
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Conclusion
O·Henry’s distinctive works—typically brief stories, characterized by vivid characters, humorous language and plot, and variations on the surprise or twist ending—brought him instant appeal, and brought verse, excitement and humor to the genre. His sympathy for the underdogs, the little men and women dwarfed in the maze of contemporary life, to a degree accounted for his enormous popularity.
O·Henry is perhaps the most popular and widely known American short story writer of the twentieth century. During the eight-year period when he lived in and wrote in New York City, the short story form was at the height of its popularity, and dozens of periodicals featuring on short fiction competed for the works of celebrated authors’. It was against this background that O·Henry quickly rose to the position of the most sought-after and acclaimed American short story writer by the virtue of
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his distinctive works. The highly ironic, sentimental or unexpected story conclusion has been closely identified with O·Henry so that his name has become synonymous with the fiction of this kind. During the last decade of his life and for about a decade following his death, O·Henry was the most popular and widely read American short story writer. He was commonly regarded as modern American master of the short story form. His works were considered as models of genre and his short story techniques were taught in college writing courses. In 1918 the Society of Arts and Science met to vote upon a monument to the master of short story, O·Henry. They decided that this memorial should be in the form of two prizes for the best short stories published by American author in American magazines during the year 1919. From this beginning the memorial developed into an annual anthology of outstanding short stories by American authors. To have a story published in O·Henry’s Memorial Award Prize Stories symbolized preeminence in the field because his works stood for the time being at least at the height of the standard of what short story was meant to be. Although absurdly over praised by critics and reviewers at first and just as thoughtlessly repudiated by them later, and the ups and downs of his fame since his death, O·Henry’s stories maintain a respectable place among the reading public, growing in popularity as new editions of them were translated into nearly a hundred foreign languages. The pen name O·Henry became a byword both in his
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own country and in faraway places outside the United States. Critics continued to reassess O·Henry’s contribution to literature, with most maintaining that this characteristically brief, humorous, sometimes sentimental stories have earned him a permanent place as a skilled and inventive story writer who has profoundly influenced the course of American short story for half a century.
O·Henry’s assets for contrivance, sentimentality, repetition and melodrama are conspicuous. Perhaps most important of all, he has influenced an entire generation of writers and helped provide an enthusiastic audience for their works, and “he still emerges, by his huge achievement and the immense popularity of his particular method, as an astonishingly persistent influence on the short story of almost every decade since his day.”(Kirkpatric 282)
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Acknowledgements
I have eternal gratitude to??，my tutor, for her inestimable help and valuable instruction, and to Professor Chen, for his insightful lectures, which inspire me to compose this dissertation.
I am greatly indebted to Professor Yang for his allowing me to have access to his books pertinent to this dissertation.
I also thank those who help me in course of the writing and whose names I can’t list here one by one.
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