Abstract

Black humor, a school of literature, rose in response to the turbulence of American society in the 1960s. Black humor portrays the ridiculousness of the world and the suppression of common people and expresses the irony of social phenomenon to an absurd extreme to make people laugh and tear.
O. Henry is a prolific short-story writer and a representative of American black humor writers. He wrote about the life of common people in New York city. A twist of plot and surprise endings, which develop an ironic and coincidental story, are typical of O. Henry’s stories. This thesis mainly analyzes black humor reflected in O. Henry’s short stories.
This thesis consists of four parts. The first part presents an overview of the origin of black humor and the historical background of O. Henry’s black humor stories. The second part analyzes the black humor embodied in characterization. The third part follows three sorts of dislocation, a kind of expression technique frequently used by O. Henry, to elucidate the black humor in O. Henry’s short stories. The last part analyzes the black humor as reflected in the narrative structure in O. Henry’s short stories.

Key words: black humor; O. Henry; characterization; dislocation; narratives

摘  要

黑色幽默是一种文学流派。它是在美国60年代社会动荡不安的背景下应运而生的。黑色幽默派突出描写人物周围世界的荒谬和社会对个人的压迫，将小说中表现出对社会现象的讽刺夸张到及其荒谬的程度，达到让人哭笑不得的效果。
欧•亨利是一位多产的短篇小说家，美国黑色幽默派的代表人物。他擅于描写纽约底层小人物的生活。他的小说情节曲折，结局出人意料，以此来展开一个既讽刺又充满巧合的故事。本文主要对欧•亨利短篇小说中的黑色幽默进行分析。
本文分为四个部分。第一部分对黑色幽默的起源以及当时欧•亨利创作黑色幽默小说的历史背景加以概述。第二部分对体现在小说人物塑造上的黑色幽默加以分析。第三部分用欧•亨利在小说中最擅用的表现手法分析黑色幽默。第四部分分析欧•亨利短篇小说中叙事结构上体现出的黑色幽默。

关键词：黑色幽默；欧•亨利；人物塑造；错位艺术；叙事结构