从《竞选州长》看马克•吐温的幽默艺术【毕业论文】.doc

1、I （ 20_ _届） 本科毕业 设计 从竞选州长看马克 吐温的幽默艺术 An Analysis of Mark Twains Humor in Running for Governor 英语 II 摘要 马克 吐温 (1835-1910)是美国批判现实主义文学的奠基人 ,世界著名的短篇小说大师。众所周知 ,马克 吐温擅长幽默 ,几乎所有他的作品中都充满了幽默的影子。汤姆 索亚历险记、哈克贝利 费恩历险记这两部作品中的幽默代表了马克 吐温长篇小说的巅峰。同样，短篇小说也是理解马克 吐温幽默很好的素材。其中，竞选州长代表了马克 吐温早期幽默艺术的高峰，作品中充满了幽默的语言、令人喷饭的情节和滑稽

2、的场面，同时在内容上也相当深刻，它揭示出美国所谓 “ 民主 ” 的选举制度的黑暗内幕。过去很多的研究着重在马克 吐温的两篇长篇游记，本文拟从叙事技巧和修辞手法两个方面探讨竞选州长中幽默的运用，从而去体会他不拘一格的幽默讽刺风格。 关键字 ： 马克 吐温；竞选州长；幽默；叙事技巧；修辞手法 III Abstract Mark Twain is the founder of American critical realism and a famous short story writer. As we all know, Mark Twain is good at humor, and almos

3、t all of his works are full of humor. The humor in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn represents the peak of his artistry. Also, short stories are good material for readers to appreciate Mark Twains humor. Among all of his short stories, Running for Governor represent

4、s the summit of his early humor. This short story is full of humorous language, unexpected plot and amusing scene. Moreover, the content is quite profoundrevealing the dark lowdown of the so called American “democracy”. Dozens of studies have focused on Mark Twains two adventure novels over the past

5、 years; this article undertakes an analysis of Running for Governor from narrative techniques and rhetorical devices to discuss Twains humor. Key words ： Mark Twain; Running for Governor; humor; narrative techniques; rhetorical devices IV Contents Abstract . III 1. Introduction . 1 1.1 Mark Twain an

6、d Running for Governor . 1 1.2 Literature review . 3 1.3 Purpose of writing this paper . 3 2. Mark Twains humor seen from his narrative techniques . 4 2.1 Special plot and structure . 4 2.2 The first person point of view . 5 2.3 Quotations . 7 2.4 Postscripts . 7 3. Mark Twains humor seen from his u

7、se of rhetorical devices . 7 3.1 Irony . 7 3.2 Exaggeration . 8 3.3 Contrast . 8 3.4 Anti-climax . 9 3.5 Euphemism . 9 4. Conclusion . 10 Bibliography . 10 Acknowledgements . 11 1 1. Introduction 1.1 Mark Twain and Running for Governor Mark Twain， pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, spent his ear

8、ly life in the river town of Hannibal, Missouri, strategically located on the banks of the Mississippi. Before the Civil War, crowds of people arrived at the town before heading for the west. When he was twelve, his father died, and he was apprenticed to a printer. His schooling was brief. At sevent

9、een he left home and traveled in the southwest and west for the next fifteen years, working first as a traveling printer, then as a Mississippi River pilot, and as a miner, mine speculator and journalist in Nevada. It was in Nevada that he first used the pen name, “Mark Twain”, which spoke of his lo

10、ve of the Mississippi River and his river life. “Mark Twain” was always a welcome river call meaning “two fathoms” and indicating that the water was deep enough for safe passage. In Nevada, he dreamed of striking it rich, but failed. Instead he supported himself by newspaper reporting, specializing

11、in humorous feature stories. With the publication of his Jumping Frog story, now known as The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, the pen name “Mark Twain” soon attracted the national attention. In 1867, he traveled to Europe and the Holy Land Palestine. The journey resulted in The Innocents

12、 Abroad (1869) which soon became a best seller. On February 2, 1870, he married a wealthy eastern lady, Olivia Langdon, thus beginning thirty-four years of loving and extraordinarily close companionship. In 1872, his second book Roughing It, which recounted his experiences in Nevada, was published.

13、The family settled in Hartford, Connecticut, where Mark Twain met Charles Dudley Warner and William Dean Howells, the most influential literary critic of the day. Then he finished another work, The Gilded Age (1874) with Warner. Mark Twains first real novel The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876) and it

14、s sequel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885) helped him become one of the greatest novelists America has ever produced. Mark Twains later life was plagued by business disappointments and the deaths of loved ones, his oldest daughter, his wife and his youngest daughter. His works became even mo

15、re sarcastic. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court (1889) was an attack on racial discrimination. The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1900), which made troubled inquiries into the nature of man himself, was probably the best of his powerful pessimistic tales. The famous Chinese writer Lu Xun on

16、ce said that: “Not only Mark Twains works make people laugh, but also his pen name.”(Lu Xun, 2006: 179) As a matter of fact, Mark Twain does use humor to make readers laugh with tears. As the founder of American critical 2 realism and famous short story writer, Mark Twain is good at humor, and almos

17、t all of his works are full of humor. His humorous language, special writing style and writing skill have attracted the people from all over the world. In American, his position as “The Lincoln of American Literature” is unshakeable. Mark Twains short stories are full of special humor and intelligen

18、t language. His western-based humor and slangy words had broken the limitation of the tradition literature and dug a bright new road of American literature. Running for Governor is from Mark Twains early works. It was written in 1870, five years after the American Civil War. In 1865, the war came to

19、 an end. President Lyndon Baines Johnson pardoned a part of revolting slave owners and absurdly proposed “equality principle” to accept southern rebels to rejoin the federal states. At the same time, the northern speculators, the south slave owners, the infamous three-K party raged rampantly. Under

20、the pressure of American peoples fight, the U.S. Congress passed the “reconstruction of the south“, and announced a black civil rights bill; enacted amendments to the Constitution. However, writing on paper is one thing, the actual line is another. Running for Governor is produced under such a backg

21、round. The Civil War broke out in 1861 and ended in 1865. It was ended with the victory of north and the national unity. At that time, the U.S. capitalist economy developed rapidly. It formed monopoly capital; it controlled the state power; it practiced two-party system at home to implement harsh cl

22、ass oppression and exploitation under the guise of “democratic freedom”; it practiced capital export in foreign policy to plunder and expansion. When the U.S. presidential election, the state governors were also produced in the two party. The Democrats and the Republicans spared no expense to buy th

23、e votes and slander each other to win. Running for Governor reflects this dark social reality and paints a wonderful caricature for the American “democracy”. Running for Governor talks about a farce election happening in the great state of New York. In the story, Mark Twain was nominated for the Gov

24、ernor of the great state of New York. During the course of election, he was mudded by his political opponents, and slandered by the newspapers. What was worse, nine little toddling children, of all shades of color and degrees of raggedness were taught by his opponents to rush on to the platform at a

25、 public meeting, to clap him around the legs and called him “Pa“. Therefore, he was forced to give up as a candidate. Just as Zheng Kelu once said: “From Mark Twains early works, we can see the superficially humorous, imaginative writer actually is a severely social critic.” (Zheng Kelu, 2008:224)Th

26、is short story exposes the hypocrisy of the American “democracy”. A decent, honest and innocent people becomes the most dishonest, the least innocent “sinner” in the 3 campaign, which tells people that the so-called “capitalism”, “free election”, “democracy” is nothing but fig leaf for bourgeois pol

27、iticians struggling for power and brutal strife. The short story also exposes the capitalist hypocrisy of “free speech”. The so-called bourgeois “freedom of speech“ is in essence to use lies to slander, attack, frame each other, and deceive the masses. The novel also rips the capitalist states the c

28、amouflage of “two-party system“. Bourgeois parties are the same in nature that they cannot reflect the will of the people. Ideological significance of this short story goes far beyond the time it produced. But until today, it still reminds us of the hypocrisy and deceptive nature of bourgeois democr

29、acy. 1.2 Literature review Mark Twain has occupied a very special and important position in the history of American literature. The humor and satire in his works has been discussed from generation to generation. Just as American writer, literary critic William Howells says: “Emerson, Longfellow, Low

30、ell, HolmesI knew them all and all the rest of our sages, poets, seers, critics, humorists; they were like one another and like other literary men; but Clemens was sole, incomparable, the Lincoln of our literature.”(William Dean Howells, 1910: 187) Many scholars focused their attention on Mark Twain

31、s two adventure novels, especially his Colloquialism. Marcus Culiffe once appraised Mark Twain that “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” (Marcus Cunliffe, 1985: 161). The

32、 style has swept American literature and is continued in both prose and poetry. William Faulkner declared, “In my opinion, Mark Twain was the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs, who descend from him” (quote in Chang Yaoxin, 2003: 135). Sherwood Anderson, Ernest Hemingway,

33、 E.E. Cummings and even T.S.Eliot and Ezra Pound were all following Mark Twains tradition. 1.3 Purpose of writing this paper It can be said that Mark Twain has represented the greatest honor in the whole American literature, and he has long been the focus of the literary writers and literary comment

34、ators. Mark Twain not only inherited the traditional American humor headed by Washington Irving and Russel Lowell, but dug a bright new road of American literature by using special humor. Of his whole works, those short stories are undoubtedly outstanding ones. Among them is Running for Governor, in

35、 which the humor and satire presented is highly sophisticated and enriching. This thesis tries to have an analysis of Running for Governor from its narrative techniquesspecial plot and structure, the first person point of view, quotations, 4 postscripts and use of rhetorical devices, namely, irony,

36、exaggeration, contrast, anti-climax and euphemism, aiming to help readers to have a better and profound appreciation of Mark Twains humor and satire so that they can understand that under the surface of the laugh there is dark social reality and deceptive democracy. 2. Mark Twains humor seen from hi

37、s narrative techniques 2.1 Special plot and structure This short story does not have an ordinary plot, typical situation, model personalities that other general stories have. The whole story is told by “I” the candidate for Governor of the great state of New York. And it can be divided into three pa

38、rts: the first paragraph is the first part, “I” with “good character” felt “disturbed” since running the campaign, because the rivals are two unscrupulous people. “I” felt that “I” lower myself to their level. This part preliminary opens the darkness of the campaign, and it is the beginning of the s

39、tory. The second part is from “It was my very thought!” to “clasp me around the legs and call me PA!” This part writes slander, libel, frame-up, verbal attack “I” have suffered through the campaign, profoundly exposing the hypocrisy of the U.S. “democracy”. This is the development and climax of the

40、plot. In this part, “I” was slandered of “the infamous perjurer Twain”, “the Montana Thief, “the Body -Snatcher”, “Mr. Delirim Tremens” and “I” was threatened by anonymous letters. The newspapers also convicted “I” of “the Filthy Corruptionist”, “the Loathsome Embracer”, “burning a lunatic asylum”,

41、“poisoning uncle to get property”, “employing old relatives”. This part can be arranged into five levels, the first fourth levels concretely describe the libels and the fifth level summarizes many libels together. This kind of arrangement is to show that the campaign is come to a head. Bourgeois new

42、spapers dirty tricks are more and more like heavy storms, making people breathless, let alone protest oneself. The last part of the story is to from “I gave up” to the end. It writes that “I” was forced to withdraw the campaign, and made forceful representations to the campaign by humorous signature

43、. This story has no character directly appearing except the narrator“I”. The whole story consists of newspaper and letter quotations, lots of soliloquy of “I”. The arrangement of the plot gives readers strong rhythm. With the stepping up of the slander, the rhythm is becoming faster and faster and t

44、he irony is becoming stronger and stronger. The story raises a serious of questions, and indicates the answers by the psychological activities and emotional change of “I”. At the end, Mark Twain uses a nontraditional signature to counterattack, with critical humor. 5 This kind of arrangement forms an