苏州大学应用技术学院2008级学士学位论文A Study of Structural ArtIn O. Henry’s Short Stories简析欧亨利短篇小说中的结构艺术专业：08英语学号：0816420053姓名：周俊导师：房红梅2011.12.10Acknowledgements摘要欧·亨利是美国最著名的短篇小说家之一，曾被评论界誉为美国现代短篇小说之父。
他善于戏剧性的设计情节，做好铺垫，最后在结尾处让人物命运陡然逆转，从而形成独特的艺术魅力。
近些年来有不少关于欧·亨利小说的探索研究，但多关是于欧·亨利小说语言的幽默和小说的结尾，这样不免过于片面。
本次论文主要通过概述了美国短篇小说的一些特色，与前人对于欧亨利小说结构内容编排的研究。
再通过分别列举欧亨利著名小说中的经典片段研究欧亨利小说中的独树一帜的开头与小说那些出人意料的戏剧性结尾，还有欧亨利小说中从头至尾的双线结构艺术。
主要通过这三方面的论述欧亨利小说的结构特色。
关键词：欧·亨利；结构艺术；双线索AbstractO．Henry, one of the most famous short story writers in the world, has been known as the father of the modern American short stories. He is good at designing plot theatrically, lays down the foreshadowing, and finally shows the unexpected endings which make the readers suddenly see the light, joy after sorrow. Processing novel ending is O．Henry's most creative contribution, thus cause him to enjoy the great reputation in American and in the world history of literature. O．Henry is a unique artist of short stories. In recent years, there are many researches about O．Henry's short stories, but most of them are based on the humor language and the endings of his works. But it is too one-sided. This thesis mainly analyze the fiction structure art of O．Henry. The thesis is divided into 6 chapters. The first chapter is an introduction of O. Henry. The second part is the literature review. The third chapter is an analysis of the diversified openings of O．Henry's works: opening with description; opening with comment; opening with allusion. The fourth part is about the unexpected endings, also from three aspects: happy ending; ridiculous ending; sorrowful ending. The fifth part is the dual-clue structure. The sixth part is the two clues crossed more than twice and two clues crossed once. The final chapter is the conclusion.Key Words: diversified openings; unexpected endings; dual-clueContentChapter 1 Introduction (1)1.1 Significance of the Study (1)1.2 Structure of the Thesis (1)Chapter 2 Literature Review (3)2.1 The Overview of Short Stories (3)2.2 The Plot in O. Henry’s Novels (4)Chapter 3 The Diversified Openings (6)3.1 Opening with Description (6)3.2 Opening with Comment (7)3.3 Opening with Allusion (7)Chapter 4 The Unexpected Endings (9)4.1 The Happy Ending (9)4.2 The Ridiculous Ending (10)4.3 The Sorrowful Ending (10)Chapter 5 The Dual-clue Structure (12)5.1 The Two Clues Crossed More than Twice (12)5.2 The Two Clues Crossed Once (13)Chapter 6 Conclusion (14)Appendix (15)Chapter 1 Introduction1.1 Significance of the StudyO．Henry, one of the most famous short story writers in the world, enjoys the equal status with Chekhov and Maupassant. He is known as the father of American contemporary short stories. Some critics are not so enthusiastic about his works, but the public love them very much. O．Henry is a prolific American short story writer, a master of surprise endings. Processing novel ending is O．Henry's most creative contribution, which made him enjoy the great reputation in American history of literature.Many critics in America and other countries comment on O．Henry and his work respectfully. People speak highly of the ingenious arrangement of his works, the typical characters and plots, and the critical implications of his works. Critics often regard him as a writer who puts moral judgment and social criticism into his unique style with humor, satire, burlesque and obvious comic inclination.There are many comments on O. Henry and his works. Opinions on O．Henry's works from the aspects of theme, tone, object of vision, and plot to that of language and style were all found. The comment on various aspects of O．Henry's works are quite essential and necessary for us to understand the writer and his works.Like his endings, O．Henry's openings are very outstanding. O．Henry's short stories have diversified openings. In O．Henry's works, the openings and endings are mainly the following types, opening with description, opening with comment, opening with allusion and surprise endings, ridiculous endings and sorrowful endings.The dual-clue structure is also an interesting element in O. Henry’s works.By studying some most famous stories of O. Henry’s, the thesis attempt to provide a new and more objective interpretation of O. Henry and explore his unique writing style.1.2 Structure of the ThesisThe thesis consists of 6 chapters. The first chapter makes a general introduction to O. Henry, points out the necessity for the study, and further clarifies the aims and significance and structure of the thesis. Chapter 2 presents the overview of American short stories and some other’s study of O. Henry’s works. Chapter 3 is mainly about the analysis of the O. Henry’s diversified Openings.In Chapter 4, I will study the O Henry’s unique endings, which will divide into 3 parts. The dual-clue structure analysis is in Chapter 5. The final chapter gives the conclusion of the thesis.Chapter 2 Literature Review2.1 The Overview of Short StoriesAuthors such as Charles Dickens, Kurt V onnegut, Jr., Nathaniel Hawthorne, Virginia Woolf, Dino Buzzati, Rudyard Kipling, William Faulkner, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, P. G. Wodehouse, H. P. Lovecraft and Ernest Hemingway were highly accomplished writers of both short stories and novels. Short stories have their face in oral story-telling traditions and the prose anecdote, a swiftly sketched situation that quickly comes to its point. With the rise of the comparatively realistic novel, the short story evolved as a miniature version, with some of its first perfectly independent examples in the tales of E. T. A. Hoffmann. Other 19th-century writers well known for their short stories include Nikolai Gogol, Guy de Maupassant. Some authors are known almost entirely for their short stories, either by choice or by critical regard (short-story writing is thought of as a challenging art). An example is Jorge Luis Borges, who won American fame with The Garden of Forking Paths, published in the August 1948 Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine. Another example is O. Henry, for whom the O. Henry Award is named. American examples include Flannery O’Connor, John Cheever, and Raymond Carver.The art of storytelling is doubtlessly older than record of civilization. Even the so-called modern short story, which was the latest of the major literary types to evolve, has an ancient lineage. Perhaps the oldest and most direct ancestor of the short story is the anecdote and illustrative story, straight to the point. The ancient parable and fable, starkly brief narrative used to enforce some moral or spiritual truth, anticipate the severe brevity and unity of some short stories written today.Short stories tend to be less complex than novels. Usually a short story focuses on one incident; has a single plot, a single setting, and a small number of characters; and covers a short period of time.In longer forms of fiction, stories tend to contain certain core elements of dramatic structure: exposition (the introduction of setting, situation and main characters); complication (the event that introduces the conflict); rising action, crisis (the decisive moment for the protagonist and his commitment to a course of action); climax (the point of highest interest in terms of the conflict and the point with the most action); resolution; and moral.Because of their length, short stories may or may not follow this pattern. Some do not followpatterns at all. For example, modern short stories only occasionally have an exposition. More typical, though, is an abrupt beginning, with the story starting in the middle of the action. As with longer stories, plots of short stories also have a climax, crisis, or turning point. However, the endings of many short stories are abrupt and open and may or may not have a moral or practical lesson. As with any art forms, the exact characteristics of a short story will vary by creator.When short stories intend to convey a specific ethical or moral perspective, they fall into a more specific sub-category called Parables. This specific kind of short story has been used by spiritual and religious leaders worldwide to inspire, enlighten, and educate their followers.2.2 The Plot in O. Henry’s NovelsThe typical feature of O. Henry's stories is a twist of plot which turns on an ironic or coincidental circumstance. His ultimate achievement was to create a new kind of short story with a novel ending-"surprising ending”, or "twist ending", which wins him a great fame.The real charm of O. Henry’s tales lies in his reversal of the narrative. He would arrange a story moving in one direction. And just when reader was going to be convinced of the general direction of the narrative which he took for granted, the story would be completely reversed.With respect to the theory of prose fiction, the central formalist distinction is that between the story and the plot, An author is Sid to transform the raw material of a story into a literary plot by the use of a variety of devices that violate sequence and deform and defamiliarize the story elements; the effect is to foreground a narrative medium and devices themselves, and in this way to disrupt what had been people's standard responses to the subject matter.Usually in a literary work, the temporal order of succession of the events in the story and the pseudo-temporal order of their arrangement in the narrative is different according to author's intention when they present one work to the public. To Tzvetan Todorov, a French narratologist, the relation between the time of the story and the time of the discourse is subtle. Furthermore, there is temporal distortions; infidelities to the chronological order of events; relationships of linking, alternation, or embedding among the different lines of action that make up the story with aesthetic value (Forster, 1974:85-88).In order to understand later sections of any narrative, readers must connect their content with that of the earlier sections, thereby establishing reflexive reference on the level of events,character features, etc. Especially in O. Henry's works, the events of some short stories are arranged in the specific order of occurrence by distorting the natural order in which they occurred which exceed reader's normal expectation to the arrangement of those events in his work, then exert the effect of defamiliarization to make his works new and strange.(张秀娟2007;3)Chapter 3 The Diversified OpeningsO．Henry’s short stories start with varying openings. Most of his stories do not begin immediately with an action, but the readers are supplied with a background of both time and place, and then, the hero is introduced. O．Henry is good at foreshadowing in the opening of the story. In O．Henry's works, the varying openings are mainly the following types:3.1 Opening with DescriptionUsually, O．Henry begins the story with some descriptive sentences to introduce the environment or describe the dress and personal adornment of the character, giving readers a very distinct sense of being led only gradually into the story. For example, The Count and the Wedding Gust begins as follows:One evening when Andy Donovan went to dinner at his second boarding-house,Mrs. Scott introduced him to a new boarder, a young lady, Miss Conway. MissConway was small and unobtrusive. She wore a plain, snuffy-brown dress, andbestowed her interest, which seemed languid, upon her plate. She lifted herdifferent eyelids and shot one perspicuous, judicial glance at Mr. Donovan,politely murmured his name, and returned to her mutton. Mr. Donovan bowedwith the grace and beaming smile …①Here the writer draws the readers' whole attention to the two people in the apartment. O．Henry uses a lot of words to describe the actress’s appearance. The readers were supplied with so many details, for example, the actress’s clothing, figure, even the action details. The actor was described in the same way, even with the facial expressions.In a general way, the descriptive sentences were used to express feelings, render atmosphere and foil characters. In O．Henry's The Count and the Wedding Gust, the opening was a serious of descriptive sentences. This series of detail description were designed to leave the readers an impression that both the actor and the actress are good mannered, and both of them belong to the upper class in society。
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