Abstract

O·Henry, one of the three masters of short stories in the world, is the founder of American modern short stories. His stories mostly reflect the real life of people at the bottom of society in America in the early 20th century. O·Henry is good at observing details of daily life and capturing the typical scenes in order to portray the characters’ minds and sometimes even show inherent contradictions of life. The thesis starts with O·Henry’s short stories and his background and combines with O·Henry’s specific works to discuss O·Henry’s writing styles. The thesis emphasizes his styles in writing stories and it concretely analyzes three aspects, including humor, conciseness and irony. It also illustrates the factors of forming these styles, that is artistic techniques. It aims to explore its literary value.

Keywords:  O·Henry; writing styles; language; artistic techniques

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

1.1 The life of O·Henry-1

1.2 O·Henry’s works-1

1.3 O·Henry’s themes-2

2. Literature Review-4

3. Writing Styles of O·Henry’s Short Stories-5

3.1 Humor-5

3.2 Conciseness-7

3.3 Irony-8

4. The Factors to Writing Styles-9

4.1 The surprising ending-9

4.2 The dual-clue structure-10

5.Conclusion-12

Works Cited-13