马克吐温的写作风格及技巧

The writing style and writing skill of Mark Twain’s short stories When talking about American literature, most of people will think about Mark Twain .In America, his position of “The Lincoln of American Literature” is unshakable. Mark Twain’s true name is Samuel Langhorne Clemens is one of the most famous humorists in the world .His humorous language; special writing style and writing skill have attracted the people from all over the world. What’s more, “The Adventure of Tom Sawyer” and “The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn” are the most famous and popular works of him. Even today, people still enjoying these two books.However, what marked the beginning of Twain’s literary career are his short stories. These short stories not only displayed the writing style and writing skill of Twain, but his mind in his whole writing career. Being a humorist, Mark Twain’s short stories are full of special humor and intelligent language .His western-based humor and slangy words had broken the limitation of the traditional literature and dug a bright new road of American literature .All in all, his humor contain following features: First, on the base of western traditional humor, Mark Twain use many hyperbole and extremity exaggerate imagination to make the stories more humorous and more ironic .In “Journalism in Tennessee”, the author described a messing journalism, the editor flub dub and gulf, the readers persist unreasonably and even fighting with the editor. “The chief” and “the colonel” use their dragoon to shot each other, but the bullets always “end their career” in “my body”. This is really a farce! From the beginning to the end, the author had used his great imagination to make the story more ridiculous. Sometimes, Mark Twain used the “wrong matched ” to make the stories more exaggerate .In “Running for Governor ” this skill is great used .It said that Mark Twain, the candidate had committed Perjury by “robbing a poor native widow and her helpless family of a meager plantain-patch”, Body-Snatcher by “slandering Governor Hoffman’s grandfather”. This words sounds ridiculous. However it enhances the comedic effect and reveals the hypocrisy of American’s “democratic election” and the blah journalism. Secondarily, Mark Twain’s humor was not just for amusement, but was a sharp weapon to criticize the evilness of society. He satirized the Sunday-school book, the unfair world in “The Story of the Bad Little Boy” and “The Story of the Good Little Boy”. In these two books, he talks about two boys: one is a bad boy, Jim who always does the bad things, he never follows the good model of the textbook, and even hate them, but he becomes a legislature; another boy who always follows the good model of the textbook and does many good things, but died miserably. In these two stories the author often repeat a sentence like this: “ In the Sunday-school book the bad/good little boy always …

…But the truth is …… ”. It is so ironic that these two different characteristic boys get these different ending: bad boy does bad things but live a charmed life, the good boy always bad luck when he does good things. The world is unfair, the people in the world is also unfair. Though the content of the Sunday-school book is good ——good people get reward and the bad people get punish, but the world isn’t . These two stories make readers think deeply while enjoying the humorous and ironic stories. Another notable example is in “How I Edited an Agriculture Paper ”. In the story, the new editor “I” had said these words: “Who writer the dramatic critiques for the second-rate paper? Why, a parcel of promoted shoemakers and apprentice apothecaries…… Who review the books? People who never wrote one. Who do up the heavy leaders on finance? Parties who have had the largest opportunities for knowing nothing about it ……”. These words satirize ignorant and haver of the editors of newspaper. These words was said by “I” who have been in the editorial business going on fourteen years, and also the deeply heart of Mark Twain. Mark Twain’s humors contained sorrow and satire. He exposed the crime of the exploiting class, of imperialists and of the whole society, showing deep sympathy for the toiled and persecuted. Besides humor, Mark Twain’s simple, plain and local color language also attracted many readers. Most of works of Mark Twain are originate from his childhood life, so his language is full of western characteristics. The using of slang, colloquialisms make the stories more interesting and close to life. In “Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, Simon Wheeler tell “me” the stories. Simon’s words are full of slang and dialect. It makes the story more interesting and the words have displayed his society position and education condition. These kind of words help Twain to display his vivid characters and make the story much more funny and attracted. In Mark Twain’s story, we can always find that he like to use “I” to be the narrator of the stories. What’s more “I” always is an honest, simple-minded, innocence man who have great and beautiful dream, but always be dashed in the end. For example, Mark Twain had written a story that a Chinese men Ai Songxi leave his motherland and went to the paradise—American. He was so happy before, because he thought that he would not live a hard life anymore, he could earn a lot of money in American. This men was so innocence that he thought every people was kind-hearted, thought his boss who brought he to American use many excuse to cheat him, he also considered his boss as a kind person. However his dream never come true. He was badly treated by the policeman, bitten by the dog and cheated by his boss. He had nothing with him and was put into prison; he even didn’t know why he was arrested. The dashed of innocence men’s dream show the mightily contras

t of the dream and the reality and also show the dark area of the society. Mark Twain likes to describe the characters of his stories. His special and detail description makes up many vivid and interesting images. In “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, Mark Twain’s wonderful description makes readers strike table and shout bravo: “Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his chair and then set down and reeled off the monotonous narrative which follow this paragraph.” Just two sentences, Twain has described Simon’s characteristic: eager to talk to others but no one willing to listen to her. What’s more, the two verbs “backed, blockaded” not only make the story more vivid but enhanced the humor of the language. Mark Twain’s short stories can attract many readers is not only because we can know the deeply thought of him. At the beginning of his writing career, the works are very casual; most of them are just write for fun. Just like “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, “Journalism in Tennessee”, “Mrs. McWilliams and the Lighting”, most of them are like a farce. Then his writing topic became more and more serious. He used more satire than humor, began to criticize the dark area of the society sharply. “A True Story ” is of this kind. It reveals the racial discrimination. We may find its interesting and funny on the literal, but under the words, it was covered by the serious social problems, which make people think deeply. The late periods of his works are full of frustrate thought. He wrote many articles or short stories to reveal the evilness of human nature and the society. “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” belongs to this kind. In the story Mark Twain use less humor but more serious description to reveal the hypocrisy and cupidity of the human nature. He once said that: “Man is worse than animal. He is the cruelest. So he is the lowest animal.” All in all, Mark Twain’s stories are full of the concern and care of the small potatoes in the society. He likes the casual and simple life they live, sympathies their poor condition and the miserably encounter, and criticizes the unfair society for them. Mark Twain, who was called “The Father of Literature”, had brought us many wonderful works. He’s humorous language with sharp satire make the readers laugh with tears. Famous Chinese writer Luxun once said that: “ Mark Twain is not only a expert who good at telling jokes, but also expert in writing the society and the people.” 无意之中找的 你写论文可能用得上 马克吐温的写作风格和技巧