第4卷 第3期 武汉航海（武汉航海职业技术学院学报） Vol.4 No.3 2009年9月 Wuhan Marine(Journal of Wuhan Marine College) Sep.2009
—————————————— ※收稿日期：2009-07-26
作者简介：张震，男，武汉航海职业技术学院公共课部，研究方向：英美文学。
论马克·吐温的幽默
张震
（武汉航海职业技术学院，湖北 武汉 430062）
【中图分类号】I712.64,H319.4【文献标识码】A 【文章编号】2160/SG(2009)03-0027-05
I. Introduction
It is acknowledged that Mark Twain is a great literary giant of America in the late 19th century . It is he., the first American writer, who fus folk humor and rious literature into one whole, thus shapes the world’s view of America.
Humor is the art of being funny. It aims to give people pleasure but it always includes an element of satire. As “the true father of American literature.” Mark Twain’s art is distinguished for its humor which is achieved mainly through the liberal u of funny American colloquial language and various figures of speech, such as irony, exaggeration, contrast , anti-climax and repetition, etc, which will be discusd in detail with the illustration of some of his famous works in the paper.
II. Writing Techniques Concerning Humor
1. Colloquialism
Mark Twain’s humor is rich and varied. One of the most frequent means of creating a humorous effect is his liberal u of vernacular. It is just in the most prosperous period of “American Humor” that Mark Twain takes to write, so most of his words are colloquial, full of American slang, and his ntence structures
are simple, even ungrammatical, which infu a column of fresh air into literary works. His
frontier tale “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.” which make him nationally famous, is just a good example . We may quote a passage from it to rve as an illustration:
“well, thish-y e r smiley had rat-terriers, and chicken cocks, and tom-cats and all of them kind of things, till you couldn’t rest, and you couldn’t fetch nothing for him to bet on but he’d match you. He ketched a frog one day, and took him home, and said he cal’lated to educate him; and so he never done nothing for three month but t in his back-yard and learn that frog to jump. And you bet you he did learn him, too.He’d give him a little punch behind, and the next minute you’d e that frog whirling in the air like a doughnut---e him turn one summert, or may be a couple, if he got a good start, and came down flat-footed and all right, like a cat. …”(Twain 116)
The words ud here are short, direct and most of them come from slang ud in frontier hotels, such as “thish-yer”, “ketched”, “cal’lated to”, “you bet you” and so on. Sentence structures are simple or compound, with a ries of “and” rving as connectives. The whole tale except the first and last
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paragraphs is told by a single man. It sounds like the actual speech act of an uneducated man. Though the tale is like some kind of “tall tale”, the u of vernacular makes it more interesting.
The funny style of colloquialism can be en everywhere in Mark Twain’s works: The Gilded Age, The Adventure of Tom Sawyer, Life on the Mississippi and his masterpiece --- The adventure of Huck
leberry Finn, as a quel to Tom Sawyer. Tom Sawyer and especially Huck Finn are well known as children’s literature. Speaking in vernacular, two typical American wild and uneducated boys are vividly brought to life and impress every child’s heart deeply. What is more, his great mastery and effective u of vernacular is mostly due to his local colorism, which sheds light on the contemporary society. Marcus Culiffe once appraid Mark Twain that “in his hands comic jargon and dialect became a finished literary weapon, unemphatic, visual, and deceptively simple, sounding like speech and yet not quite the same”(Culiffe 161). The style has swept American literature and is continued in both pro and poetry. Just as William Faulkner declared. “In my opinion, Mark Twain was the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs, who descend from him”(Chang 191). Sherwood Anderso n, Ernest Hemingway, E.E. Cummings and even T.S.Eliot and Ezra Pound are all following Mark Twain’s tradition.
2. Figures of Speech
Beside the style of colloquial language, technically, a great deal of Mark Twain’s humor is achieved through the u of various figures of speech.
1) Irony
It is fun to read Mark Twain’s works,
学大教育1对1for most of his works tend to contain some witty remarks, practical jokes and comic details, etc. However, we should keep in mind that Mark Twain’s humor is different from pure humor. Pure humor is empty, which usually involves word games. Its reputation disappears with the passing of time. As a professional humorist. Mark Twain is of cour interested in jokes, but we cannot summarize his entire work as a handful of mere jokes, as Mark Twain himlf said:
“Humor must not profesdly teach , and it must not profesdly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever…If the humor came of its own accord and uninvited, I have allowed it a place in my rmon, but I was not writing the rmon for the sake of the humor, …”（Devoto 202-3）
We can e something deeper than mere joke. More often, Mark Twain tends to combine humor with satire to criticize the social life and people’s morals and manners.
Irony is to make humor and wit. Mark Twain’s satire in Running for Governor, one of his early short stories , is well known for everybody. In this story, the author---“I ” was nominated for Governor of the great state of New York to run against Mr. Woodford and Mr. Hoffman, two fictional figures. We can e how Mark Twain us pretty irony to satirize the two person’s contemptible and shameless beha
vior in the fight: When “I ” heard the news as follows one day---
“THE LIE NAILED!…it is established that Mr. Mark Twain’s vile statement that the lamented grandfather of our noble standard-bearer, John T. Hoffman, was hanged for highway robbery, is a brutal and gratuitous lie, without a shadow of foundation in fact. …” (Twain 8)
Mark Twain us “the ingenious closing ntence” to emphasize the rivals’
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“venomousness” Superficially. “I” is “vile,” the rival is “noble,” and the public are “outraged and insulted, ” but indeed “I ” is treated unjustly and they are all wicked.
Though in the whole story, Mark Twain does not put forward any absolute truth about the society, the readers can easily grasp it through the phenomena. This is what Mark Twain differs from others in using irony.
2) Exaggeration
In using exaggeration, Mark Twain exaggerates not characters but circumstances.
In addition to the u of irony, Running For Governor is full of exaggeration.
When “I ” was accud of “perjury,” “I thought I should burst with amazement! Such
a cruel, heartless charge. I never had en Cochin China! I never had heard of Wakawak! I didn’t know a plantain-patch from a kangaroo”(Twain 4)! And when “I was coupled with this disgraceful suspicion” with an additional name“the besotted brute.”“I ”refuted that “Three long years had pasd over my head since I had tasted ale, beer, wine英雄heroes第一季
or liquor of any kind ”(Twain 12). What is more impossible. “as a due and fatting climax
to the shameless percution that party rancour had inflicted upon me, mine little toddling children of all shades of color and degrees of raggedness., were taught to rush on to the platform at a public meeting, and clasp me around the legs and call me Pa”(Twain 18)!
At first glance, you may laugh at Mark Twain’s hypocrisy, but indeed, just through the unreal things, you can find something real. Through Mark Twain’s hypocrisy, you can e the party rival’s hypocrisy. Exaggeration is , undoubtedly, one important writing technique concerning humor. The esnce of humor lies in the understanding of irrational things while the effect of irrationalism may be produced by exaggeration.
3) Contract
Contrast is also one of Mark Twain’s main means of creating a humorous effect, and the u of contrast often runs through his whole work. Take his short story The ￡1,000,000 Bank-Note for example.
In this story, the biggest contrast is about the fate of the chief character--- “I ”. At first, “I was alone in the world , and had nothing to depend upon but my wits and a clean reputation”(Twain 98), but becau of a bet made by two rich men, more exactly becau of a note of a million pound. “I ’was not only world-famous , but also earned a Certificate of deposit for ￡200,000, and what is more. “I ”married one of the rich men’s daughter. All sounds comic and impossible, but when you look into the story, considering the corruptive influence of money and illusory notions of honesty and integrity in capitalist society, you will think it possible. In the detail, there is a remarkable contrast to show Mark Twain’s intention of satirizing men’s attitude towards money: when “I ”got to London, “my clothes were ragged and shabby.” After taking the note of a million pound. “I ” had a sharp longing to shed my rags and clothe mylf decently, but when “I ”went into a tailor-shop and asked a misfit suit, no fellow answered me. “I waited till he has done with what he was at, then he took me into a back room, and overhauled a pile of rejected suit, and lected the rattiest one for me ”(Twain 116-18), an
d said in a most sarcastic expression of countenance that he did not expect “me” to have any small changed for the suit. “I ” was nettled , and took out that note. Immediately, they changed their attitude toward me. The boss asked “me” to do him the favor to put on a t of rich, ducally nobby clothes, and
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measured me warm-heartedly, and saw “me” off personally.foul
That Mark Twain’s humor strips away veils on society by contrast often leaves a deep impression on readers. In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain expos the pre-civil war American society through the eyes of Huck by thematic contrasts between innocence and experience , wilderness and civilization . Hemingway had a high opinion of it ---“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huck Fin n…It’s the best book we’ve had. There was nothing before…”(Gui and Wu 216)
4) Anti-climax
Most of Mark Twain’s works are humorous, becau they are out of your expectation, so it is necess
ary to say something about Mark Twain’s characteristic way of prenting a biting satire on the political and social system through anti-climax, which is shown in Running For Governor.introduction是什么意思
At the very beginning , the author pointed out that Mr. Woodford and Mr. Hoffman--- my rivals were so despicable that “it was plain that in the latter years they had become familiar with all manner of shameful crimes ”(Twain 2). Compared with them, “I somehow felt that I had one prominent advantage over the gentlemen, and that was ---good character.” On reading here, not only the protagonist but also the readers have the confidence that “I ” must be the winner in the fight . However, to every reader’s surpri. “I ” gave up the competition at last, and even admitted that “I was not equal to the requirements of a Gubernatorial campaign in the state of New York. ” and nt in the withdrawal from the candidacy with the signature “Truly yours, once a decent man, but now, Mark Twain I.P..M.T..B.S..D.T..F.C..and L.E.” The effect of the u of anti-climax is especially a satire on the hypocrisy of the so-called “Democracy” in America.
5) Repetition
Repetition and pun are subtle in u, but they are indispensable parts of Mark Twain’s humor. In the ￡1.000.000 Bank-Note, we may quote the following paragraph as an illustration of repetition:
They saw many honest faces go by that were not intelligent enough; many that were intelligent, but not honest enough; many that were both, but the posssor were not poor enough, or, if poor enough; were not strangers.(Twain 104)
The repetition of “enough” emphasizes that “I ” is just the man that the two rich men have found, thus start the protagonist’s comic experience, and so the readers are deeply absorbed in Mark Twain’s humorous story. Certainly, the function of repetition is not limited to this . More often , Mark Twain tends to u repetition and pun to stress his exaggeration about the circumstance to achieve the effect of humor.
III. Conclusion
Generally speaking , people regard Mark Twain as a great landmark in American literature, for he is good at expression his emotions romantically as well as satirizing the esnce of society with the skilled u of the special weapon--- humor. In style, Mark Twain widely absorbs American colloquial language and makes it a watershed in the history of American literature. Technically, he us flexibly various figures of speech---irony, exaggeration, contrast, anti-climax and repetition , etc, to create vivid American humor.
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In fact, Mark Twain’s humor is of such a universal and comprehensive character that
2009年第3期张震论马克吐温的幽默·31·
全脑速读记忆
the readers are usually struck by it, so , it is very difficult to say in what its peculiarity consists. In a word, Mark Twain’s humor is American enough.
As a great literary artist and a great social critic of his age, Mark Twain displays a complete range of his genius in his famous essays. An authoritative French journal, the Mercure de France, once paid Mark Twain this distinguished tribute:
His public is as varied as possible, becau of the versatility and suppleness of his talent which address itlf successively to all class of readers. He has been called the greatest humorist in the world, and that is doubtless the truth: but he is also a charming and attractive story teller, an alert romancer, a clever and penetrating obrver, a philosopher without pretensions and, therefore, all the more profound, and finally a brilliant essayist.(Buddnorthward
25)
I think this is the best summing up of Mark Twain and his art. Works Cited
[1]Budd. Louis J. Critical Essays On Mark Twain. Boston: G.K.Hall&Co., 1983.
[2]Chang Yaoxin. A survey of American Literature. Tianjin: Nankai UP,1990.
[3]Culiffe Marcus. The literature of the United States[M]. New York: Penguin Books,1986. [4]Devoto Bernard Ed. Mark Twain In Emption. New York: Harper&Brother, 1949 [5]Gui.Yangqing,Wu.XiangLin Eds. Selected Readings in English and American Literature.Beijing:China Translation & Publishing CORP,1985
[6]Seelye.John. Introduction. Mark Twain: The Adventure of Tom Sawyer. Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1994
[7]Twain. Mark. “Running for Governor.” Selected Short Stories of Mark Twain. Eds, Liu. Xianzhi and Chen.Xiongshang, Beijing: Translation Press, 1979.2-19
[8]Florence. Don. Persona And Humor In Mark Twain’s Early Writings, Columbia: University of Missouri Press,1995
On Mark Twain’s Humor
ZHANG Zhen
analogybrothel(Wuhan Marine College, Hubei Wuhan 430062,China)
红与黑下载Abstract：As everybody knows , Mark Twain is a great social critic as well as a great humorist in the late 19th century. In order to prent the characteristics of Mark Twain’s humor, the paper mainly discuss his writing techniques from different points of view. On the one hand, Mark Twain’s humor is distinguished for his liberal u of funny American vernacular style, which breaks away from the influence of British traditional literature and fully embodies the spirit of America. On the other hand. Mark Twain us various figures of speech, such as irony, exaggeration, contract, anti-climax and repetition , etc, to probe deeply into the character and conscience of the world, to teach people lessons about society.
Key Words: Mark Twain；Humor；Vernacular style；Figures of speech
