论马克·吐温的作品《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》中的幽默与讽刺毕业(2)

许昌学院本科生毕业论文

Introduction

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许昌学院本科生毕业论文

The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn written in 1884, became the masterpiece of Mark Twain. This novel was regarded as a piece of work which could best represent his writing talents partly , because it gave full play to humor. Hemingway once said “All modern American literature came from one book written by Mark Twain called The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn”.［3］

This novel was narrated by Huck, the sequel begins with its unschool hero under the motherly protection of Widow Douglas and her sister Miss Watson|. His father kidnaps him and imprisons him in a lonely cabin. Huck escapes to Jackson’island where he meets Miss Watson|’runway slave Jim. They start their way on a raft and begin their adventures during the Mississippi River. At last,Jim is set free in Miss Watson|’will and Huck decides to go on his adventures for he doesn’t want to have the so-called “civilized” life.

First, after the introductory part,this chapter tells us Mark Twain’biography and the formation of his humor and irony. In Chapter Two, based on the sources of Twain’humor and irony in Huckleberry Finn. Chapter Three introduces the purpose and effect of Twain’humor. The last part of this paper is the conclusion of Twain’s humor and irony.

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许昌学院本科生毕业论文

Chapter One Mark Twain and his humor and irony

1.1Biographical sketch of Mark Twain

Mark Twain, the pseudonym of Samuel Langhome Clemems, was born in Mississippi, son of John Marshall Clemems, a restless and unsuccessful lawyer-land speculator, who settled at Hannibal, Missouri, on the Mississippi in 1839. When he he was 12 , his father died and he had to leave school. He was successively a printer’apprentice , a tramp printer, a silver miner, a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi , and a frontier journalist in Nevada and California. These experiences gave him a lot of knowledge of humanity , which helped much on his writing career.

After the publishing of “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”,Twain became nationally famous. The Gilded Age was his first novel, which was an artistic failure, but it gave its name to the America of the post-bellum period which it attempted to satirize. Twain was most noted for his sister novels The The Adventure of Tom Sawyer and The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, the later became his masterpiece. Because of three years’life on the Mississippi, he finished another famous work“Life on the Mississsippi”.

Twain is a great humorist, but he doesn’t write only for humor’s sake, instead, he uses humor to express his wisdom, which helps to enhance his humor. He makes full use of humor and irony to expose the society ,express his understanding of life and humanity.

1.2The reason of Twain’humor and irony’formation

When we refer to a literary giant, Mark Twain is remembered by men of letters firstly as a mastermind humor and a bitter satier writer.But what cause his humor and satire? In my opinion , there are two reasons: one is the social influence and the other is his personal encounters.

1.2.1Social inflences

Twain’ writing style was greatly affected by the American Civil War(1861-1865)

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许昌学院本科生毕业论文

and the re-constraction after the war. Everything has two sides, the war not only gave the writer a hard life but also gave him some perious experiences which were important materials to his writing.

With the advent of the civil war, Twain begun his pilot career. He took large time in this life, listening to pilothouse talk of feuds, piracies, lynchings, medicine shows, and savage waterside slums. In 1861 he became a journalist and adopted “Mark Twain”as his pen name,then he made his mind to establish his fame by writing. He dug his way in writing style as a humorist with rich war experiences. As a realistic writer, Twain gradually noticed the darkness and the differences between what he saw superficially and what they really were in-depth. He begun to expose the social reality, sharply satirize the social evils and social injustices with his humorous words.

1.2.2Personal encounters

It is no doubt that the social influence of Twain’s day affected his attitude towards life, his outlook of society, his writing style and so on. However, there is another important reason which also can’t be ignored when we analyse his writing style.

As a world-renowned literary giant and a gifted humorist, Twain met countered countless personal hardships and sufferings.When he was twelve, his father’death was only a start, his family members left him one by one, bitterness fed on the man who had made the world laugh. Mark Twain is a optimistic person, but after the failure in business and the deaths of his loved ones, he changed his writing style into bitter satire after making the world laugh by his humor,that ie to say, his writing style was blended with humor and sharp satire then. All the experiences of the people are perious materials for his writing career, Mark Twain uses his sadness and splendid talent creates so many great works to express his humor in deed and satirize the real society.

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许昌学院本科生毕业论文

Chapter Two Four Sources of Twain’Humor and Irony

in Huckleberry Finn

Mark Twain presents before readers an immense world of humor in Huckleberry Finn. It is impossible to analyse every funny deed or act, witty talks of different characters in this novel. To have a clear study, we need a categorization. After a totally reading of Huckleberry Finn, I find four sources for Twain’humor and irony, which will be analysed respectively in the following sectioes.

2.1The Vernacular Language

Literature is a art of language. Novel as a kind of literary, undoubtedly, is related with language. Humorous literature makes a good use of language, including vernacular language.

Vernacular language is a kind of native language from a coutry or a locality, which can be expressed by slang and dialects.

As a famous humorist, Twain uses a lot of slangs and dialects in his novel“Huck Finn” . For example, in the explanatory part of this work, Twain wrote:

“In

this

book a number of dialects are used : the Missouri negro dialect; the extremist form of the backwoods southwestern dialect; the ordinary pike county’dialect: and four modified varieties of the last. The shadings have not been done in hap-hazard fashion,or by guesswork, but painstakingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personsl familiarity with these several forms of speech.”［1］

His father is a good example using a lot of slang of dialect whenever he opens his mouth, producing much fun. In Chapter Five, pap heard Huck became rich and was educated in school, so he returned home to catch Huck and begun to prattle:

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