Abstract

O. Henry is a master of short stories in the world. Vivid characters, humorous language and surprise endings all these features that make up what is called O. Henry’s technique. He always creates his works which reflects the criticism of American society with humorous words from a realistic perspective.
After introducing American realism and summarizing O. Henry’s writing features, this paper analyzes the main characters, twist ending and humorous words with “The Man Higher Up” as a sample according to the social environment of America which O. Henry lived in and his life experience. This thesis is aimed to find out the manifestation mode of the realism in this story and reveal social reality of America in 20th century. The ultimate purpose is to help deepen readers’ understanding of O. Henry’s works.

Key Words:  O. Henry  Realism  “The Man Higher Up” 

摘 要

欧•亨利是世界短篇小说大师，鲜活的人物，诙谐的语言和出人意料的结尾构成了欧•亨利的写作风格。其作品主要从现实主义出发，用幽默的方式表达对美国社会的批判。
本文在介绍美国现实主义及归纳欧•亨利小说写作特点后，就欧•亨利当时所处的美国社会环境和欧•亨利本人的人生经历，以其短篇小说《黄雀在后》为例，分析其主要人物、结尾以及幽默的语言，探究现实主义在作品中的具体体现，批判二十世纪美国存在的社会问题，从而深化对作家作品的认识。

关键词： 欧•亨利  现实主义 《黄雀在后》

1 Introduction
O. Henry was a famous short story writer in America. His works reveal and criticize the social issues of America. O. Henry’s magic is writing stories from the talk of the person who experiences the whole thing so that you can feel as if you are in the story and using specific language that fraudsters use. “The Man Higher Up” shows us the dark side of the true world and also shows “the lie” in a humorous way.
1.1 Background Information of American Realism
From the end of the American Civil War to the beginning of the First World War, the United States finished the transformation from an agricultural society to an industrial society. With this shift American society and economy also changed sharply. However, industrialization brought both advantages and disadvantages.