從《競(jìng)選州長(zhǎng)》看馬克吐溫的幽默藝術(shù)【畢業(yè)論文】

1、<p><b>　　（20_ _屆）</b></p><p><b>　　本科畢業(yè)設(shè)計(jì)</b></p><p>　　從《競(jìng)選州長(zhǎng)》看馬克?吐溫的幽默藝術(shù)</p><p>　　An Analysis of Mark Twain’s Humor in Running for Governor</p>&

2、lt;p><b>　　英語(yǔ)</b></p><p><b>　　摘要</b></p><p>　　馬克?吐溫(1835--1910)是美國(guó)批判現(xiàn)實(shí)主義文學(xué)的奠基人,世界著名的短篇小說(shuō)大師。眾所周知,馬克?吐溫擅長(zhǎng)幽默,幾乎所有他的作品中都充滿(mǎn)了幽默的影子。《湯姆?索亞歷險(xiǎn)記》、《哈克貝利?費(fèi)恩歷險(xiǎn)記》這兩部作品中的幽默代表了馬克?吐溫長(zhǎng)篇小

3、說(shuō)的巔峰。同樣，短篇小說(shuō)也是理解馬克?吐溫幽默很好的素材。其中，《競(jìng)選州長(zhǎng)》代表了馬克?吐溫早期幽默藝術(shù)的高峰，作品中充滿(mǎn)了幽默的語(yǔ)言、令人噴飯的情節(jié)和滑稽的場(chǎng)面，同時(shí)在內(nèi)容上也相當(dāng)深刻，它揭示出美國(guó)所謂“民主”的選舉制度的黑暗內(nèi)幕。過(guò)去很多的研究著重在馬克?吐溫的兩篇長(zhǎng)篇游記，本文擬從敘事技巧和修辭手法兩個(gè)方面探討《競(jìng)選州長(zhǎng)》中幽默的運(yùn)用，從而去體會(huì)他不拘一格的幽默諷刺風(fēng)格。</p><p>　　關(guān)鍵字：馬克?

4、吐溫；《競(jìng)選州長(zhǎng)》；幽默；敘事技巧；修辭手法</p><p><b>　　Abstract</b></p><p>　　Mark Twain is the founder of American critical realism and a famous short story writer. As we all know, Mark Twain is good at

5、 humor, and almost 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 reader

6、s to appreciate Mark Twain’s humor. Among all of his short stories, Running for Governor represents the summit of his early humor. This short story is full</p><p>　　Key words：Mark Twain; Running for Governor

7、; humor; narrative techniques; rhetorical devices</p><p><b>　　Contents</b></p><p>　　AbstractIII</p><p>　　1. Introduction1</p><p>　　1.1 Mark Twain

8、 and Running for Governor1</p><p>　　1.2 Literature review3</p><p>　　1.3 Purpose of writing this paper3</p><p>　　2. Mark Twain’s humor seen from his narrative techniques4</p&g

9、t;<p>　　2.1 Special plot and structure4</p><p>　　2.2 The first person point of view5</p><p>　　2.3 Quotations7</p><p>　　2.4 Postscripts7</p><p>　　3. Mark Twai

10、n’s humor seen from his use of rhetorical devices7</p><p>　　3.1 Irony7</p><p>　　3.2 Exaggeration8</p><p>　　3.3 Contrast8</p><p>　　3.4 Anti-climax9</p><p

11、>　　3.5 Euphemism9</p><p>　　4. Conclusion10</p><p>　　Bibliography10</p><p>　　Acknowledgements11</p><p>　　1. Introduction</p><p>　　1.1 Mark Twain and

12、Running for Governor</p><p>　　Mark Twain，pseudonym of Samuel Langhorne Clemens, spent his early life in the river town of Hannibal, Missouri, strategically located on the banks of the Mississippi. Before the

13、 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 seventeen he left home and traveled in t

14、he southwest and west for the next fifteen years, working first as a traveling printer, then as a Missi</p><p>　　It was in Nevada that he first used the pen name, “Mark Twain”, which spoke of his love of the

15、 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 fai

16、led. Instead he supported himself by newspaper reporting, specializing in humorous feature stories. With the publication of his Jumping Frog story, now known as The Notorious Jumping Fro</p><p>　　On February

17、 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 Ne

18、vada, was published. 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 G

19、ilded Age (1874) with Warner. Mark Twain’s first </p><p>　　Mark Twain’s later life was plagued by business disappointments and the deaths of loved ones, his oldest daughter, his wife and his youngest daughte

20、r. His works became even more sarcastic. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889) was an attack on racial discrimination. The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg (1900), which made troubled inquiries into the nature

21、of man himself, was probably the best of his powerful pessimistic tales. </p><p>　　The famous Chinese writer Lu Xun once said that: “Not only Mark Twain’s works make people laugh, but also his pen name.”(Lu

22、 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 realism and famous short story writer, Mark Twain is good at humor, and almost all of

23、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, h</p><p>　　Running for Governor is from Mark Twain’

24、s early works. It was written in 1870, five years after the American Civil War. In 1865, the war came to an end. President Lyndon Baines Johnson pardoned a part of revolting slave owners and absurdly proposed “equality p

25、rinciple” 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 the pressure of American people’s fi

26、ght, the U.S. Congre</p><p>　　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

27、 formed monopoly capital; it controlled the state power; it practiced two-party system at home to implement harsh class oppression and exploitation under the guise of “democratic freedom”; it practiced capital export in

28、foreign policy to plunder and expansion. When the U.S. presidential election, the state governors were </p><p>　　Running for Governor talks about a farce election happening in the great state of New York. In

29、 the story, Mark Twain was nominated for the Governor 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

30、toddling children, of all shades of color and degrees of raggedness were taught by his opponents to rush on to the platform at a public meeting, to clap him around the legs and called hi</p><p>　　Just as Zhe

31、ng Kelu once said: “From Mark Twain’s early works, we can see the superficially humorous, imaginative writer actually is a severely social critic.” (Zheng Kelu, 2008:224)This short story exposes the hypocrisy of the Amer

32、ican “democracy”. A decent, honest and innocent people becomes the most dishonest, the least innocent “sinner” in the campaign, which tells people that the so-called “capitalism”, “free election”, “democracy” is nothing

33、but fig leaf for bourgeois politicians struggling</p><p>　　1.2 Literature review</p><p>　　Mark Twain has occupied a very special and important position in the history of American literature. The

34、 humor and satire in his works has been discussed from generation to generation. Just as American writer, literary critic William Howells says: “Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Holmes—I knew them all and all the rest of our

35、 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 De</p><p>　　1.3 Purpose of writin

36、g this paper</p><p>　　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 commentators. Mar

37、k 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 ar

38、e undoubtedly outstanding ones. Among them is Running for Governor, in which the humor and sati</p><p>　　2. Mark Twain’s humor seen from his narrative techniques</p><p>　　2.1 Special plot and st

39、ructure</p><p>　　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 gre

40、at state of New York. And it can be divided into three parts: the first paragraph is the first part, “I” with “good character” felt “disturbed” since running the campaign, because the rivals are two unscrupulous people.

41、“I” felt that “I” lower myself to their level. This part preliminary opens the darkness of</p><p>　　This story has no character directly appearing except the narrator—“I”. The whole story consists of newspap

42、er 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 the irony is becoming stronge

43、r 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</p><p>　　This kind of arrangement

44、 forms an unexpected humorous feeling. The plot of Running for Governor is highly dramatic. At the beginning of the story, the author plays up his “prominent advantage”, making readers deduce the end from general princip

45、les. However, the development of the plot is the opposite, with an unexpected end. This kind of “surprise” which violates the logic is much better revealing the truth of life than “general principles”. Therefore humorous

46、 effect is achieved. Usually, we wou</p><p>　　2.2 The first person point of view</p><p>　　In Mark Twain’s works, he used the first person point of view a lot. Running for Governor is one the bes

47、t examples. When writing in first person, the author uses </p><p>　　his own name as the hero’s, enhancing the truth of the story and sense of humor. Thus, it looks as if "I" were the author, who ha

48、s personally suffered all kinds of misfortunes and seen all kinds of farces, making people sympathize with what happened to him and abhor the saucy rascal. In this way, the ugliness of capitalism revealed in the novel pr

49、oduced an undoubtedly sense of reality. At the same time, it is a great prop to the work's artistic charm. However, we must not regard the novel as a n</p><p>　　Mark Twain uses self- depreciation to achi

50、eve humorous effect. “I” am simple and honest, even naive. “I” seem to have no idea about “democracy”, “democratic election”, and have no preparation to the newspaper slander. In real life, Mark Twain cannot be such a “s

51、tupid” person, but for expected humorous effect, Mark Twain chose this kind of “good character” person to contrast with devious enemy. </p><p>　　2.3 Quotations</p><p>　　A great number of quotati

52、ons will impress the readers most after they finish reading Mark Twain’s Running for Governor. These quotations are just what make the story humorous and full of satire. In fact, these quotations from newspapers, anonymo

53、us letters are part of the author’s work. First, the using of quotations can enhance some color of truth to the story. This kind of writing method gives the readers an illusion that this story is not a make-up, but repor

54、tage. This lifelike portrait form i</p><p>　　2.4 Postscripts</p><p>　　In Running for Governor, there are five postscripts, all talking about the “title”. Their contents are similar, only with di

55、fferent titles. These postscripts are full of humor. In the first postscript, words like “never”, “referred to”, “in any other way” are picked by the author intentionally to taunt the rumormongers of their disgusting man

56、ner of constant repeating lies, which makes people laugh. In the second postscript, the word “customarily” has a strong sense of irony that reveals the Parr</p><p>　　3. Mark Twain’s humor seen from his use o

57、f rhetorical devices</p><p>　　Technically, a great deal of Mark Twain’s humor is achieved through the use of various figures of speech, namely, irony, exaggeration, contrast, and anti-climax, euphemism etc.&

58、lt;/p><p>　　3.1 Irony </p><p>　　From a certain point of view, irony and humor are closely related, and sometimes cannot be differentiated. Mark Twain’s humor is different from those of word games.

59、Those word games are just for laugh, nothing profoundly. “Pure humor is empty, and its reputation disappears with the passing of time. As a professional humorist, Mark Twain is of course interested in jokes, but we canno

60、t summarize his entire work as a handful of mere jokes.” (Zhang Zhen, 2009) Irony in Mark Twain’s works makes the h</p><p>　　“THE LIE NAILED!…it is established that Mr. Mark Twain’s vile statement that the l

61、amented grandfather of our noble standard-bearer, John T. Hoffman, was hanged for highway robbery, is a brutal and gratuitous lie, without a shadow of foundation in fact. …” （Mark Twain, 2010）Mark Twain uses “the ingenio

62、us closing sentence” (Mark Twain,2010)to emphasize the rivals “venomousness”. Superficially, “I” is “vile,” the rival is “noble,” and the public are “outraged and insulted,” but indeed, “I” is treat</p><p>　

63、　3.2 Exaggeration</p><p>　　The most noticeable feature of Mark Twain’s humor is exaggeration, which makes the plain description profoundly ironical. If exaggeration compared to a mirror, what it shows is the

64、 reality of the society and truth of human nature. In Running for Governor, Mark Twain binds irrelevant things together to exaggerate his sufferings.</p><p>　　“I didn't know a plantain patch from a kanga

65、roo!”(Mark Twain, 2010)</p><p>　　“I got to pick up papers apprehensively -- much as one would lift a desired blanket which he had some idea might have a rattlesnake under it.”(Mark Twain, 2010)</p>

66、<p>　　“charged me with burning a lunatic asylum with all its inmates because it obstructed the view from my house”, “ nine little toddling children of all shades of color and degrees of raggedness were taught to r

67、ush on to the platform at a public meeting and clasp me around the legs and call me PA”.(Mark Twain, 2010)</p><p>　　Example (1) (2) put two irrelevant things together, and this is Mark Twain’s cleverest exag

68、geration. The former intentionally compared plantain to kangaroo, emphasizing that “I” have no idea about the plantain. It not only has the function of humor, but also describes the innocence of “I”, that made it more ev

69、ident that the rivals will exert all their dirty tricks to slander “I”. The latter emphases “my fear” after “I” was framed, emerging insidiousness of the rivals. Example (3) emphases that t</p><p>　　3.3 Cont

70、rast</p><p>　　Contrast is also one of Mark Twain’s main means of creating a humorous effect, and the use of contrast often runs through his whole work. In Running for Governor, Mark Twain uses two vivid cont

71、rasts to reach his goal. The first is the contrast between “I” and the rivals. “I” was a candidate of independent party, with good character, (Independent party was fabricated), and “I” have to run against two political

72、rascals who “familiar with all manner of shameful crimes”.(Mark Twain, 2010) But the re</p><p>　　3.4 Anti-climax</p><p>　　Most of Mark Twain’s works are humorous, because they are out of your ex

73、pectation, so it is necessary to say something about Mark Twain’s characteristic way of presenting a biting satire on the political and social system through anti-climax, which is shown in Running for Governor. At the ve

74、ry beginning, the author pointed out that Mr. Woodford and Mr. Hoffman— “my rivals”— were so despicable that “it was plain that in these latter years they had become familiar with all manner of shameful crime</p>

75、<p>　　3.5 Euphemism </p><p>　　The strain of deep irony is more saliently showed in the use of euphemism. When talking about Stewart L. Woodford and John T. Hoffman, the author uses “if ever they had kno

76、wn what it was to bear a good name, which time had gone by”.(Mark Twain, 2010) Actually, the author is to tell the readers that these two people are frequently doing disgraceful things. When talking about the attack by t

77、he mobs, Mark Twain uses “outraged and insulted public” and “in their righteous indignation” to describe, an</p><p>　　4. Conclusion</p><p>　　Mark Twain is “a mirror of America”. (Fan Gexin, 2006

78、:133) As “The Father of Literature”, Mark Twain had brought us many wonderful works. His humorous language with sharp satire make the readers laugh with tears. “It is only right that Mark Twain should be remembered both

79、as a great literary artist and as a great social critic in the history of the United States.” (Chang Yaoxin 2003:140) </p><p>　　Generally speaking, people regard Mark Twain as a great landmark in American li

80、terature, for he is good at expressing his emotions romantically as well as satirizing the essence of society with the skilled use of the special weapon— humor. Technically, he uses flexibly various figures of speech—iro

81、ny, exaggeration, contrast, and anti-climax, Euphemism, etc, to create vivid American humor. Humor makes people laugh, then deep in thought. Mark Twain is such a great humorist. In his works, humor is </p><p&g

82、t;　　Bibliography</p><p>　　Louis J. Budd. Critical Essays on Mark Twain [M]. Boston: G.K.Hall&Co., 1983.</p><p>　　Chang Yaoxin. A Survey of American Literature [M]. Nankai University Press，20

83、03.</p><p>　　Marcus Cunliffe. The Literature of the United States [M]. China Translation& Publishing Corporation，1985.</p><p>　　Mark Twain. A Collection of Mark Twain’s Short Stories [M]. 上海

84、三聯(lián)書(shū)店，2010.</p><p>　　Phelps, W L. Mark Twain [J]. North American Review, 1907（9）33-37</p><p>　　William Dean Howells. My Mark Twain [M]. Harper&Brothers Publishers, 1910.</p><p>　

85、　范革新. 美國(guó)短篇小說(shuō)賞析 [M]. 新華出版社, 2006.</p><p>　　魯迅. 二心集 [M]. 人民文學(xué)出版社, 2006.</p><p>　　鄭克魯. 外國(guó)文學(xué)簡(jiǎn)明教程 [M]. 華中師范大學(xué)出版社, 2008.</p><p>　　張震. 論馬克?吐溫的幽默 [J]. 武漢航海職業(yè)技術(shù)學(xué)院學(xué)報(bào), 2009（3）27-31</p>

86、<p>　　張西元. 略談馬克?吐溫小說(shuō)的創(chuàng)作藝術(shù)[J]. 鄭州大學(xué)學(xué)報(bào), 1981(3) 15-18</p><p>　　Acknowledgements</p><p>　　I cannot sufficiently thank my supervisor, Mr. Diao Junchun, whose invaluable advice and painstaking i

87、nstructions of the earlier drafts have a major impact on the final shape of this thesis. My sincere thanks are due to all the teachers who have taught me during the BA course.</p><p>　　I am also grateful to

88、Jiaxing University that has provided me a chance of this study.</p><p>　　Finally, the completion of my BA program could not have been possible without the constant support, encouragements and enduring love f