1、本 科 生 毕 业 论 文论马克 吐温的作品 哈克贝利 费恩历险记 中的幽默与讽刺院 系 外国语学院 专 业 英语（教育方向） 班 级 学 号 学 生 姓 名 指 导 教 师 职称: 讲师 2010 年 3 月独 创 性 声 明本人郑重声明：所呈交的毕业论文（设计）是本人在指导老师指导下取得的研究成果。除了文中特别加以注释和致谢的地方外，论文（设计）中不包含其他人已经发表或撰写的研究成果。与本研究成果相关的所有人所做出的任何贡献均已在论文（设计）中作了明确的说明并表示了谢意。签名： 年 月 日授权声明本人完全了解许昌学院有关保留、使用本科生毕业论文的规定，即：有权保留并向国家有关部门或机构送交
2、毕业论文的复印件和磁盘，允许毕业论文被查阅和借阅。本人授权许昌学院可以将毕业论文的全部或部分内容编入有关数据库进行检索，可以采用影印、缩印或扫描等复制手段保存、汇编论文。本人论文中有原创性数据需要保密的部分为： 签名： 年 月 日指导教师签名： 年 月 日IComment on Mark Twains work“Huckleberry Finn”of the view on humor and ironyA Thesis Submittedto School of Foreign Languages, Xuchang Universityin Partial Fulfillment of th
3、e Requirementsfor the Degree of Bachelor of ArtsIIAcknowledgementThis paper has finally come into being after several months of hard work.From the very beginning when I chose the topic till the completion of the paper, I have benefited from many people whose help I must acknowledge.I am particularly
4、 grateful to my tutor, Xu Zhongyong, for his valuable suggestions and commentary ideas, and for his patience in correcting the draft. Without his guidance and help, timely completion of this paper would not be possible.Thanks are also due to my classmates and friends for their constant encouragement
5、 and assistance in the course of writing.Yet I have to acknowledge that I am independently responsible for the paper and I am the person to blame for any pitfalls, flaws and neglects in it.III摘要马克吐温是一个世界闻名的幽默大师.哈克贝利费恩历险记是他的代表作,这部小说堪称经典。这篇论文介绍了马克吐温和他的幽默、讽刺，找出小说哈克贝利费恩历险记中幽默的来源和目的,详尽地研究了马克吐温的幽默与讽刺。 关键词
6、：马克吐温，哈克贝利费恩历险记，幽默，讽刺IVAbstractMarkTwain is a world-renowned humorist. The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn is his masterpiece, this novel has been listed in the conon of great novels.This paper introduces Twains biograph，explores the source and purpose of his humor , and has a study on MarkTwains humo
7、r and irony in detail.Key words: MarkTwain, The Adventure of Huckleberry Finn, Humor, IronyVTable of ContentsAcknowledgements.I摘要.IIAbstractIIITable of ContentsIVIntroduction.1Chapter One MarkTwain and his humor and irony 21.1 The Biograohical Sketch of Mark Twain .21.2 The reason of Mark Twains hum
8、or and ironys formation.31.2.1 Social influence.21.2.2 Personal encounters3Chapter Two FourSources of Twains humor and irony in Huckleberry Finn.62.1 The Vernacular language.62.2 Situation62.3 Caricature.72 .4 The contrast between speech and act .4Chapter Three Purpose and Effect of Twains humor in
9、Huckleberry Finn 93.1 Humor for fun .93.2 Humor for irony.9Conclusion.14Works Cited15许昌学院本科生毕业论文1IntroductionThe 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 , bec
10、ause 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”.3This novel was narrated by Huck, the sequel begins with its unschool hero under the motherly protection of Widow Douglas and her si
11、ster Miss Watson|. His father kidnaps him and imprisons him in a lonely cabin. Huck escapes to Jacksonisland 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 decid
12、es to go on his adventures for he doesnt want to have the so-called “civilized” life.First, after the introductory part,this chapter tells us Mark Twainbiography and the formation of his humor and irony. In Chapter Two, based on the sources of Twainhumor and irony in Huckleberry Finn. Chapter Three
13、introduces the purpose and effect of Twainhumor. The last part of this paper is the conclusion of Twains humor and irony.2Chapter One Mark Twain and his humor and irony1.1Biographical sketch of Mark TwainMark Twain, the pseudonym of Samuel Langhome Clemems, was born in Mississippi, son of John Marsh
14、all 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 printerapprentice , a tramp printer, a silver miner, a steamboat pilot on the Mississi
15、ppi , 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,
16、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 yearslife
17、on the Mississippi, he finished another famous work“Life on the Mississsippi”.Twain is a great humorist, but he doesnt write only for humors 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 u
18、nderstanding of life and humanity.1.2The reason of Twainhumor and ironyformationWhen 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 th
19、e social influence and the other is his personal encounters.1.2.1Social inflencesTwain writing style was greatly affected by the American Civil War(1861-1865) 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
20、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 许昌学院本科生毕业论文3slums. In 1861 he became a journali
21、st 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
22、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 encountersIt is no doubt that the social influence of Twains day affected his attitude towards life, his outlook of society, his writing style an
23、d so on. However, there is another important reason which also cant 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 fatherdeath was only a start, his family
24、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 wr
25、iting 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.Chapter Two Four Sources of
26、 TwainHumor and Irony in Huckleberry Finn4Mark 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
27、 of Huckleberry Finn, I find four sources for Twainhumor and irony, which will be analysed respectively in the following sectioes.2.1The Vernacular LanguageLiterature is a art of language. Novel as a kind of literary, undoubtedly, is related with language. Humorous literature makes a good use of lan
28、guage, 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,
29、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 countydialect: and four modified varieties of the last. The shadings have not been done in hap-hazard fashion,or by guesswork, but painst
30、akingly, and with the trustworthy guidance and support of personsl familiarity with these several forms of speech.”1His 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
31、 he returned home to catch Huck and begun to prattle: “Well, Ill learn her how to meddle. And looky here you drop that school, you hear? Ill learn people to bring up a boy to put on airs over his own father and let on to be bettern what HE is.Your mother couldnt read, and she couldnt write, nuther,_
32、before she died.None of the family couldnt before THEY died.I cant;and here youre a-swelling yourself up like this. I aint the man to stand ityou hear? Say, lemme_hear you read. ” 1In this conversation,we can see a lot of slang and dialects, such as “looky”,“put on airs over”, “bettern”, “lemme”, “n
33、uther”, and “a swelling”.We can guess some of their meaning, such as “looky” means “look”, “bettern” means “better and”, “nuther” means “neither”, “lemme” means “let me”.But there are some difficult ones, “put on airs over” and “a swelling”,they mean “act superior” and “an arrogant guy”.His vulgar l
34、angue and tone convey 许昌学院本科生毕业论文5humor and laughter to us, the slang and dialects add more fun for the character .In “Huck Finn”, there are two swindler, the duke and the king, they also give readers much laughter and fun through their words.Pay attention please,when the younger swindler wants Jim
35、and Huck to call him Duke Bridgewater, the older one call him Duke Bilgewater on purse or not.“Looky here, Bilgewater,” he says, “Im nation sorry for you, but you aint the only person thats had trouble like that.”1 Maybe thats only a little mistake made by the king, but if you analyse it carefully,
36、you will find it very interesting and humorous. “Bilgewater”, which literally means the water accumulated in the bilge of a ship, is dirty and stinky. “Bridgewater” means the water under the bridge is the flow of water, natural clear. The humor formed by this sharp contrast humor make people laugh,
37、giving people pleasure, but also showing disdain feelings which reflects the authors ironic humor vividly.2.2SituationA well-designed situation, which may involve either a single event or a series of event simple or complex, and the humou from an intricate situation is usually more brilliant.The fir
38、st humorious situation appears when Huck plans to escape from the deserted cabin where his father keeps him captivity.He kills a pig, and make some preparations as he narrated,“I fetched the pig in, and took him back nearly to the table and hacked into his throat with the ax, and laid him down to on
39、 the ground to bleed;Well,next I took an old sack and put a lot of big rocks in it-all I could drug-and Istarted it from the pig, and dragged it to the door and through the woods down to the river and dumped it in, and down it sunk, out of sight.” 1And then, he sprinkled its blood around “and pulled
40、 out some of my hair, and blooded the ax good, and stuck it on the back side, and slung the ax in the corner.” 1 I thought “theyll follow the track of that sackful of rocks to the shore and then drug the river for me.” 1 Though Huck is only a little boy ,but his plan in making up a murder scene is p
41、erfect and successed, which is funny. The most humorous situation in “Huck Finn” is the rescue of Jim. Rather than using a simple plan, Tom insists on following all the classic escape formulas of the romantic novels he has read. Tom chooses a very complex rescue way and doesnt use convenient tools.
42、Finally, they overcome all the difficulties and set Jim free,but Tomleg is hurt for his heroics. For looking 6after Tom ,Jim is caught by adults. Everyone thinks there is no hope to let Jim have freedom,but Tom tells an unbelievable truth: the owner of Jim had already set Jim free.We cant helping la
43、ughing,when we know that Huck and Tom just rescue a free person to free. The sudden turn of events has realized humorous effects.2.3CaricatureIn “Huck Finn”, there are a number of characters who are described like caricature. Mark Twain uses every possible opportunity to overstate these characters t
44、o achieve the desired humorous effect, whether it is for fun or for irony.Hucks father is a representative caricature. As the image of a drunkard, Huck described him like this“He was almost fifty, and he looked it. His hair was long and tangled and greasy, and hung down, and you could see his eyes s
45、hining through like he was behind vines. It was all black, no gray; so was his long, mixed up whiskers.There warnt no color in his face, where his face showed; it was white; not like another mans white, but a white to make a body sick, a white to make a bodys flesh orawl-a tree-toad white, a fish-be
46、lly white. As for his clothes-just rags, that was all. He had one ankle resting on tother knee; the boot on that foot was busted, and two of his toes struck through, and he worked them now and then. His hat was lying on the floor-an old black slough with the top caved in, like alid.” 1Only a few sen
47、tences which use exaggerated comic style description, presenting us a drunk who is in old dress, living dirty, all day long only know that drinking, maybe he was drunk longer than he was awake .Through this exaggerated image,Twain give us a sense of humor and clownery.Mark Twain attaches great impor
48、tance to the use of concise, comic-style exaggeration, and even grotesque strokes, to increase the effect of the novels humor and satire. In Chapter Eighteen,Twain wrote:“so I slid out and slipped off up the road, and there warnt anybody at the church, except maybe a hog or two, for ther warnt any l
49、ock on the door, and hogs likes a puncheon floor in summer-time because its cool. If you notice, most folks dont go to church only when theyve got to;but a hog is different.” 1 The church is a grave place,but there arent serious preachers but some dirty hogs sleeping on the summer day. What a comic scene! This caricature brings up laughter, but after laughing we ne
