重庆大学本科学生课程论文 简析马克吐温在《汤姆索亚历险记》中的幽默技巧

重庆大学本科学生课程论文

简析马克吐温在《汤姆索亚历险记》中

的幽默技巧

学生: 谭桥

指导教师：杨宇

班级：003

重庆大学

二O一三年十二月

Course Essay of Chongqing University

An Analysis of Mark Twain’s Humor in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer

Class: 003

Student:Tan Qiao

Supervisor: Yang Yu

Chongqing University

December, 2013

Table of Contents

1 Introduction (1)

2Use of colloquialism (2)

3 Use of figures of speech (3)

4Conclusion (5)

References (6)

Introduction

Most of Mark Twain’s works are directed against the American society. He is good at using extreme technique, enlarge the ugly phenomenon to the readers, let them find out what is right, what is wrong by themselves. For this reason, Mark Twain has a lot of audiences in the whole world. His works have practical significances, deserving to analyze. his thesis uses several points to expound Mark Twain’s humor is remarkable, it is fun to read Twain at first, for most of his works then to be funny, obtaining some practical jokes, comic details, witty remarks and so on, and some of them are actually ta ll tales. Today, most of the authors Twain’s humorous style as the main technique in their literary works, because it is the best weapon to attack the darkness, could show the author’s ideas better than any other ways.The thesis consists of two parts. The first part of the body is a detailed analysis to the use of colloquial language. The next part specifically states writing techniques in The Adventure of Tom Sawyer.

2 Use of colloquialism

Whatever Mark Twain writes is pretty sure of an eager popular recognition. And it is due to him to say that he finds his readers and admirers all around the world. His application of colloquial language to his word bestowed him the most powerful weapon to win him the outstanding status in history of literature.

A factor that made Mark Twain unique is his magic power with language, his use of colloquial language. At that time, Mark Twain adopts the American colloquial languages, hammering it into shape again and again. His words are vivid, concrete and direct in effect, and his sentence structures are simple, even ungrammatical, which is typical of the spoken language. And Mark Twain skillfully used the colloquialism to cast his protagonist s in their everyday life. What’more, his characters, confined to a particular region and to a particular historical moment, speak with a strong accent, which is true of his local colorism. Besides, different characters from different literary or cultural backgrounds talk differently, as is the case with Tom. Indeed, with his great master and effective use of vernacular, Mark Twain has made colloquial speech an accepted, respectable literary medium in the literary history of the country. His style of language was later taken up by his descendants, Sherwood Anderson and Ernest Hemingway and influenced generations of letters.

Colloquial language also gives a face to American writing, distinguishing it from writing in other parts of the world. It shows the rural, uneducated portion of America. These is an example from The Adventure of Tom Sawyer: “Look at him, Jim! He's a-going up there. Say-look! He's a-going to shake hands with him..."(Twain, 1996, P.28)

This shows how they are uneducated, because of the sloppy sentence structure, and it hints at the fact of them being rural by showing a point of view from the poor, which is welcome to those who are tired of hearing about the glamour of rich people.