从欧·亨利笔下的小人物探寻人生的真正价值_英语论文

On the Pursuit of True Significance of Life according to O. Henry’s Description of Little Figures  

摘要

对人生意义的追求历来都是一个被人们所谈及的永恒长久的话题。美国著名短篇小说家欧·亨利通过他自己的小说作品展示了他对许多方面人生意义的探寻。而对欧·亨利小说的现有研究主要集中在写作技巧和人性主题上。本文探讨他通过短篇小说中小人物们的价值观念来体现的值得人们学习的价值观。本文以人生意义探索为中心，采用内容分析、人物分析以及对比分析为研究方法，致力于对四个方面人生真正价值意义的探索。文章首先简单介绍欧·亨利的生平与作品，以及一些前人关于人生意义的研究。其次，文章从爱情、友情和金钱以及道德方面阐述欧·亨利小说中的几种价值观。通过以上的分析最后文章得出结论：追求有价值意义的人生，即是追寻真爱、真挚忠实的友谊、不拜金以及分清善恶是非等。本文试图通过人生价值意义的探寻为现代人们树立一个良好的价值观进行探讨，以便建立一个和谐和真善美的社会。

关键词：人生意义，真爱，忠实的友谊，非金钱万能， 小人物  

Abstract

The pursuit of life’s meaningfulness has been a lasting topic for a ling time. O. Henry, a famous American short-story writer, has revealed his exploration in many aspects of the significance of life through his short stories. Critics often pay much attention to his unique techniques and humanity theme. This thesis provides a value of life that is worthwhile for people to learn about, according to O. Henry’s description of little figures’ value of life. This thesis explores life’s meaningfulness, with main focuses on four aspects of life to pursue the true significance of life. It adopts content analysis, character analysis and comparison study as research methods. It first gives a brief introduction of O. Henry’s life and works, as well as some previous researches on significance of life; then it explains several values of life revealed in O. Henry’s stories with respect to love, friendship, money and morality. Finally, according to the analysis of these aspects, this thesis comes to a conclusion that to pursue a meaningful life means to seek for true love, sincere and loyal friendship, and it also means no money worship and a correct standard to identify right and wrong, good and evil. By analyzing these four aspects of the pursuit of a true significant life, this thesis attempts to help modern people to establish a good value of life in order to build a harmonious and truly beautiful world.

Key words: significance of life, true love, loyal and sincere friendship, no almighty money, little figures 

Contents

摘要 II

Abstract III

1  Introduction 1

1.1 O. Henry 1

1.2 Researches on significance of life 3

1.3Aims and structure of the present study 3

2  The eternal melody — true love 5

2.1 Original model of O. Henry’s love stories 5

2.2 True love in “A service of love” 6

2.3 Fake love in “While the auto waits” 7

2.4 Love vs. money 8

3  Friendship with sincerity and loyalty 9

3.1 Sincere friendship in “The last leaf” 9

3.2 Loyal friendship in “After twenty years” 10

3.3 Friendship/love vs. morality 11

4  Attitudes towards money in O. Henry’s little figures 12

4.1 Money worship in “Mammon and the archer” 12

4.2 No almighty money in “An unfinished story” 13

4.3 Money vs. morality 13

5  Conclusion 14

Works cited 16