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

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 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 readers 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 of humorous language, unexpected plot and amusing scene. Moreover, the content is quite profound——revealing the dark lowdown of the so called American “democracy”. Dozens of studies have focused on Mark Twain’s two adventure novels over the past years; this article undertakes an analysis of Running for Governor from narrative techniques and rhetorical devices to discuss Twain’s humor.

Key words：Mark Twain; Running for Governor; humor; narrative techniques;rhetorical devices

1. Introduction
1.1 Mark Twain and Running for Governor
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 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 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.