英语论文：论《警察与赞美诗》中反讽的运用.doc

论《警察与赞美诗》中反讽的运用The use of irony in The Cop and the AnthemContents摘要 (Ⅰ)Abstract (Ⅱ)Introduction (1)1. Brief introduction of the author and the novel (2)1.1 brief introduction of the author (2)1.2 the author’s writing style (2)2. The statement of irony (4)3. The use of irony in The Cop and the Anthem (7)3.1 Soapy’s way of wintering and his thoughts (7)3.2 Soapy’s six backfired actions (9)3.3cops’ duty and people’s view of cops (11)3.4 Soapy’s view of cops’ irresponsibility (13)3.5 Soapy has been influenced by anthem and decide to turn over a new leaf, butis arrested (14)Conclusion (17)Notes (18)Bibliography (19)Acknowledgements摘要情景反讽作为一种主要的描写手法在欧·亨利《警察与赞美诗》中的运用成功地推动了小说情节的发展，增加了小说的戏剧性悬念，使小说的人物形象更加丰满。

本文将剖析小说中的情景反讽的实例，以指出小说中情景反讽的反复运用表达了欧·亨利对当时美国资本主义社会中不合理的现象的抨击，还表达了作者对下层劳动人民的同情。

作者将情景反讽贯穿于故事的开头、发展和结尾，揭露了资本主义社会的矛盾虚伪和黑白颠倒的本质。

关键词：情景反讽；警察与赞美诗；美国资本主义社会AbstractThe adroit manipulation of situational irony by O. Henry in his masterpiece The Cop and the Anthem contributes first effectively to the unfolding of the plot. Next it increases its suspense of the plots. Last, it enables the characters vivid. In this paper I will analyze examples of situational irony in that story. The repetition of the use of situational irony expresses O. Henry’s attack on irrational phenomena in the American capitalist society at that time and also his sympathy for the lower class. The author applied the situational ironies in the beginning, development and the end in order to reveal the contradictory, hypocritical and topsy-turvy essence of the capitalist society.Key words: situational irony，The Cop and the Anthem，American capitalist societyIntroductionO. Henry is considered as “Father of American modern short stories”and “Manhattan critics crown prose writer”. His work is full of humor, his stories are amusing, flippant, flat, biting and are filled with irony, sentiment, and pathos. One of his famous works, The Cop and the Anthem is the most typical one. This paper will reveal its rhetoric beauty and the darkness of the society in O. Henry’s time in the way of analyzing the use of irony in The Cop and the Anthem.The paper falls into three parts. The first part gives brief introduction of the author and his writing style.The second part is the statement of irony, such as its definition and classification. The third part, which is the core of the paper, illustrates the use of situational irony in The Cop and the Anthem from five perspectives as follow: 1. Soapy’s way of wintering and his thoughts; 2. Soapy’s six backfired action; 3.cops’duty and people’s views of cops; 4. Soapy’s view of cops’ irresponsibility which disappoints Soapy; 5. Soapy has been influenced by anthem and decide to turn over a new leaf, but is arrested.This thesis mainly helps to learn about the use of irony in O. Henry’s time.1Brief introduction of the author and his writing style1.1 brief introduction of the authorO. Henry whose real name is William Sydney Porter，is most commonly associated with the short story and masterful ironic “O. Henry twist”(surprising ending). He has been hailed as “Father of American modern short stories” and “Manhattan critics crown prose writer”. During his lifetime he worked in various jobs，including a bookkeeper, a drugstore clerk, a Texas Ranger, an accountant, a draftsman, a bank teller and a newspaper columnist，so he knew the common people’s life style well.1.2 the author’s writing styleIrony is one of writing styles of traditional American literature. Washington Irving is the first one to employ this writing style with slight irony to make his stories funny but meaningful. Mark Twain is a good successor who unveiled the truth in life by describing exaggerated images humorously and colloquially. Yet Irving Shaw’s humor focused on the depiction of characters’ personality. In the influence of those writers, O. Henry followed their style. His work is full of humor, his stories are amusing, flippant, flat, biting and are filled with irony, sentiment, and pathos but is quite different from theirs, filled with depressed, miserable and bitter laughter.His major ironic works are The Chair of Philanthromathematics, The Cop and The Anthem, The Four Million, Confessions Of A Humorist and so on, among which The Cop and The Anthem is the most exemplary. Irony runs throughout the whole story.2The statement of ironyIrony is a figure of speech in which the intended meaning of the words used is the direct opposite of their usual sense. It is a broad term referring to the recognition of a reality different from the masking appearance. For example, “For years the hospitable Blackwell’s had been his winter quarters.”As we all know, Blackwell is a rough prison that common people are afraid of going to. Here O. Henry describes the prison with “hospital” which is completely opposite to what it really is. Thus the strong sarcastic irony effect is reached. If the writer uses “rough”, there will be no such effect at all.As irony realizes its effects by means of exaggeration, understatement and sarcasm, it can be subdivided into verbal irony, drama irony and situational irony.First is verbal irony. Verbal irony is a figure of speech in which the actual intent is expressed in words which carry the opposite meaning. It contains two levels of meaning. What it actually means is not decided by its literal meaning but the context,e.g. You are eloquent as an oyster.In fact an oyster is wordless, so here “eloquent” is intended to mean “silent”. In this way, the speaker can satirize someone who’s always taciturn.Second is drama irony. Drama irony has a special meaning, referring to knowledge held by the audience but hidden from the relevant actors. I’ll show you an example.“I hope Tom’s better off where he is”, said Sid; “but if he’d been in some ways---”“Sid!” Tom felt the glare the old lady’s eye, though he could not see it. “not a word against my Tom, now that he’s gone!”In the scene, Tom is hiding under the bed, which is clear to audience except Sid and Tom’s aunt. Because of that, Tom’s aunt reacts so strongly. In ordinary days, Tom is a naughty boy and his aunt always complains about him. It’s funny that Tom’s aunt is so emotional compared with the fact that Tom is still alive.The last one is situational irony which is the ironic spirit applied to event, and situation. The actual development of one situation is just opposite to the expression. For example,Several vacationers at the luxurious Richelieu Apartments there held a hurricane party to watch the storm from their spectacular point. Richelieu Apartments were smashed apart as if by a gigantic fist, and 26 people perished.In time of danger, people still soaked themselves in visual enjoyment rather than running away. The result was that 26 people were killed which was absolutely out of their expectations.There are a sea of ironies in The Cop and the Anthem, especially situational ironies. Detailed analysis about the situational ironies used in this novel will be given next.3The use of irony in The Cop and the Anthem It is the situational irony that is used in The Cop and the Anthem. Because it is applied throughout the beginning, the development and the end, an unexpected effect has been achieved. The analysis and the understanding of situational irony can help enable readers to enjoy literature better, to know more about the temptation for the authors and to improve their taste in literature. Here is the detailed analysis about the situational ironies in this novel.3.1 Soapy’s way of wintering and his thoughtsThe hibernatorial ambitions of Soapy were not of the highest. In them there were no considerations of Mediterranean cruises of soporific Southernshies or drifting in the Vesuvian Bay. Three months on the Island was whathis soul craved. Three months of assured board and bed and congenialcompany, safe from Boreas and blue-coats, seemed to Soapy the essence ofthings desirable. [1] P65For all animals, it is certain that storing food and looking for a place for wintering before winter are excessively necessary, let alone for advanced human beings. As winter is around the corner, wintering in the prison is obviously not a noble and reasonable idea for people with four strong limbs like Soapy, though he has no place to live without a cash in his pocket. What’s more, everyone knows what a prison is used for—a place for holding prisoners. A prison only could provide the prisoners with the most basic even quite bad accommodations, so a prison can never be a place men have been longing for. Yet in the novel, it’s a bigirony that the author compared Soapy’s ridiculous idea to the essence of things desirable.We may know from the novel, at that time there is no lack of American aid agencies, and philanthropists are not in a small number. Thus it should be said that there is no need for Soapy to live such an awkward life. Nevertheless why would Soapy rather go to prison than accept relief? It turns out that in Soapy’s opinion the law was more benign than philanthropy. If not in corn you must pay in humiliation of spirit for every benefit received at the hands of philanthropy. The conflict between Soapy’s strange idea and the reality exposes the hypocrisy of the capitalists with philanthropists’ masks. Once O. Henry severely criticized those sanctimonious capitalists in The Chair of Philanthromathematics. O. Henry said: “W hen a man swindles the public out of a certain amount he begins to get scared and wants to return part of it. And if you’ll watch close and notice the way his charity runs you’ll see that he tries to restore it to the same people he got it from.”In another word, the so-called philanthropists squeeze the money from the civilian population. The essence of charity is a cover for capitalists to give back some money for peace of mind. The ending of The Chair of Philanthromathematics also proved this point. Even in doing philanthropy, philanthropists have not forgotten exploitation and profit.3.2 Soapy’s six backfired actionsSoapy takes altogether six chances to be arrested in this fiction. Each time Soapy ends up with a turn-up and each attempt contains a situational irony. First of all, Soapy goes into a glittering café on Broadway and is ready to have a feast without paying. What a pity! As soon as he sets foot into the restaurant, the head waiter’s eyes fell upon his frayed trousers and decadent shoes. It’s natural that Soapy is thrown to the sidewalk. The last sentence of this part is: “Strong and ready hands turned him about and conveyed him in silence and haste to the sidewalk and averted the ignoble fate of the menaced mallard.” Since Soapy is poor, it’s a shame for the mallard to be eaten by Soapy. It is thus clear that the discrimination against the poor and the concept of “money talks” is very severe. Soapy turns off Broadway and comes to a shop window. He takes a cobblestone and dashes it through the glass. It’s ridiculous that the cop doesn’t regard him as a suspect at all. From this scene, we can figure out that cops in that times were not worth their salt at all. They might always arrest an innocent person, so truth is always far away from them. We can imagine how corrupt the officers are and how dark the society is! Once more Soapy goes into a restaurant but of no great pretensions. This time, Soapy has got something to eat but waiters give him a sound beat without calling a cop. Whenever a waiter face problems like that, he should have called a cop. It’s undoubtedly illegal to give Soapy a sound thrashing by himself. This also reflects the corruption and of cops. People are willingto ask police for help because they know it turns out to be no use. The forth attempt is to molest a strange girl. “A young woman of a modest and pleasing guise was standing before a show window gazing with sprightly interest at its display of shaving mugs and inkstands.” This part of description conveys information that the young woman must be a noble and well-educated lady, while God seems to play tricks on him on purpose. The girl turns out to be a prostitute who seems to won’t let her “customer” go easily. Finally Soapy takes a great deal of effort to get rid of her. Everything goes contrary to Soapy’s wishes. After that Soapy catches at the immediate straw of “disorderly conduct”. He really wants to break public orders because he really wants to be arrested, while once more a cop cares nothing for Soapy’s behavior. Things go on running in the opposite direction. “In a cigar store he saw a well-dressed man lighting a cigar at a swinging light.”“Well-dressed”and smoking “a cigar” both indicate he’s a rich gentleman, at least not poor. Soapy trys to irritate the gentleman by taking away his silk umbrella. Unexpectedly the silk umbrella actually doesn’t belong to the gentleman. He stole it that morning. As a result, he “returns” the silk umbrella to Soapy.This is an ironic and hypocritical age. A prostitute might make up like a noble lady and a thief might dress up like a rich gentleman. It is a society full of lies. In fact, each of Soapy’s action will realize his “dream”without a hitch, while it is the ridiculous society with injustice andcontradiction makes the reasonable possibility out of the question. The situational ironies of six unexpected scenes sharply satire the darkness of the U.S. from multiple angles. In front of people, capitalists always repeatedly claim that everyone is equal before God, but the police react differently to Soapy because they have mistaken Soapy’s identity. When they see Soapy’s ragged clothes, they ignore and even laugh at him; when they mistake Soapy for a rich kid from Yale University, they bear tolerance for all kinds of evil matters as much as possible. All of it reveals to people the essence of capitalist society—the paradise for the rich to enjoy themselves as they wish but the hell for the poor to suffer much.3.3 cops’ duty and people’s view of copsIt is well known that a cop’s job is to make people obey laws and prevent or solve crimes. Nevertheless we may find that the police have already forgotten their duty for a long time in this fiction. At first Soapy breaks the shop window on purpose, while the cop directly runs after a man halfway down the block catching a bus rather than takes Soapy as a suspect. By this token, police at that time seem to investigate the case at intuition rather than evidence. It must take a man some time to run over a half block. If the troublemaker didn’t catch anyone’s attention until he had broken the shop window and run over a half block, how fast he were! What’s more, it is in the day time and Soapy tries to expose his crime, so there must be someone seeing what really happens. As long as the copasks the men who is there, then there will be an answer. Secondly, when Soapy conduct disorderly at public place, the cop absolves him and even provides an explanation for him. I have thought of two reasons to explain this weird thing. One reason is that the cop actually has mistaken Soapy for a rich student at Yale University. If so, the cop stands for all the police who bully the weak and fear the strong and police are lacqueys serving for the capitalists. In those cops’ eyes, people are divided into the poor and the rich or the gentle and the simple, which is the only criterion for them to decide who is guilty. The other reason is that cops are too lazy to undertake their duty. In order to reduce their workload, they turn a blind eye to their cases. It can thus be seen police at that age are always irresponsible. Cops’irresponsibility is also reflected in the scene of stealing umbrella. The time the well-dressed gentleman admits himself taking the umbrella from other one, the cop turns around instead of arresting him. All those things go contrary to what should have happened, which result from the essence of cops—flunkies of the capitalists and tools for the ruling class. After the ex-umbrella man retreated, the policeman hurried to assist a tall blonde in an opera cloak across the street in front of a streetcar that was approaching two blocks away. That is not a cop’s duty, but it seems that he’s quite glad to do these unnecessary trifles. That is to say, police’s job has been to do what they want to rather than what they have to. A series of ironies completelyopposite to what ought to be severely condemn cops’ irresponsibility and inefficiency.As cops always neglect their duty, in people’s mind a cop is no longer what he used to be, to be more exact, but a kind of decoration. Thus whenever they get into some troubles, they always try to resolve them in their own way though it’s legal to ask a cop for help. No wonder Soapy has been thrown out of the restaurant as soon as he tells the waiter he has no money with him. In that age, people won’t get what they deserve with the help of cops. While cops still have the right to arrest someone whom they think of guilty, people seem to be afraid of them. Usually people never do any illegal things to a cop’s face. If they want to, they’ll do it behind his back.3.4 Soapy’s view of cops’ irresponsibilityAmong Soapy’s six failures of trying to get into prison, some failed because Soapy is not lucky enough and meets some guys who are good at disguising themselves, while two cases failed because of the police. If cops were responsible, careful, righteous, or not running dogs of capitalism, Soapy would have got success. In a crime’s eyes, such uncaring cops who fail to distinguish right from wrong are obviously popular with him. Nevertheless in this novel, even Soapy as a criminal is terribly disappointed with those cops. In that world, cops are no longer responsible and criminals wish cops to be dedicated to their duties, whereeverything is upside down. Thus a sharp situational irony works and expresses the author’s dissatisfaction and rage towards cops.3.5 Soapy has been influenced by anthem and decide to turn over a new leaf, but is arrestedAnd the anthem that the organist played cemented Soapy to the iron fence, for he had known it well in the days when his life contained suchthings as mothers and roses and ambitions and friends and immaculatethoughts and collars. [1] P72When Soapy is quite depressed, it’s the anthem that purifies his soul and fills him with hope again. The anthem gives a definition of truthfulness, kindheartedness and beauty, and thus there is no place for falseness, wickedness and ugliness. The anthem is the voice of justice with overwhelming power. It melts Soapy’s cold and despairing heart and pulls back Soapy who is about to move toward abyss. All of a sudden, Soapy has awakened that he is still young with beautiful dreams and wild ambitions. What’s more, his life is not always that bad. He used to get a gracious mother to cherish him, a tender girlfriend to love him and a bunch of friends to support him. Because of all the love and encourage, Soapy has got enough strength to start his brand new life. When Soapy has decided to find a new job and lead an independent life, a cop arrests him because of his doing nothing. As we all know, a prison is a place for prisoners to reform themselves through labor work and ideological education and start with a clean slate. Yet in this fiction, Soapy is arrested at the time of making up his mind to turn over a new leaf, which results ina sharp situational irony. This situational irony echoes the former ones. Thus it lets off the author’s strong resentment against the capitalist system and this topsy-turvy age. It can be said that situational irony is like a chain to link up the whole story. The author pays much attention to the use of situational irony in each scene and creates a humorous, satiric and unexpectable atmosphere for readers. What’s more, O. Henry arranges the ending skillfully. The ending is just opposite to the title, which enhances the ironic effect. Such dismal end conveys author’s deep disappointment of capitalist society. The title is The Cop and the Anthem, which seems to praise cops because they can bring fairness and justice to everyone and comfort to those unlucky people. The novel shows the essence of the cops at that time—flunkies of capitalists. To some extent, cops ruin the influence of the anthem without mercy just like executioners. Irony occurs throughout the text. Every irony serves the theme. What does capitalist society look like? It is a society of wide gap between the rich and the poor, where rich men are extremely extravagant and luxurious while poor men have no place to live; where rich men could get their way while innocent poor men get arrested. Apart from luxurious life, rich people also enjoy privilege which poor people are too far behind to catch up with. The ending not only reveals Soapy’s desire to be better, but also the social blow, thus to enable people to see the reason of Soapy’s fall. The blow from capitalist society imposes hardships oncommon people both physically and mentally and also deprives them of their rights to enjoy happiness.ConclusionO. Henry is a famous American writer of short stories. The author’s humorous nature and ironic brushwork endowed his works with great charm. The Cop and the Anthem is one of O. Henry’s major masterpiece. In the article the author artistically uses irony to reflect real life in the 1880s. At that time, American capitalists got a tremendous success in the direction of industrialization and urbanization and at the same time polarization was gradually intensifying, which enabled people to lead a dog’s life. The novel severely slashed the social inequality, and profoundly reveals the contradiction in the process of the development of material civilization, spiritual civilization and political civilization. This paper deals with the use of irony in The Cop and the Anthem from the perspective of the title, plot ending and theme and analyzes the functions and utilization skills of irony. The whole novel is filled with all kinds of ironies, which makes the theme more distinct and profound, characters more vivid and lifelike, the plot more intricate and sinuous, so that the whole story is more fascinating with humor and wit. Faced with the topsy-turvy world the author depicts, people feel like laughing. Nevertheless it’s not a light-hearted or pleasant laughter but a grieved and thought provoking one. Therefore we can say irony is the soul of The Cop and the Anthem. Because of it, The Cop and the Anthem is ready for an extended life.Notes[1]吴伟仁. History and Anthology of American Literature. 北京：外语教学与研究出版社，1990.Bibliography[1]Ma Keyun．On Artistic Forms and Attributes of Literary Irony. 2004(03)．[2]Wayne Booth．The Rhetoric of Fiction[M]．Chicago，1961．[3]陈兰．浅议《警察与赞美诗》的主题表现艺术[J]. 江苏教育学院报（社会科学版），1998（04）.[4]董衡巽．美国文学简史（修订本）．北京：人民文学出版社，2003．[5]龚乙珊．欧·亨利小说语言艺术形式探寻——从《警察与赞美诗》谈起[J]．文教资料，2007（22）．[6]马军．论欧·亨利的创作风格——以《警察与赞美诗》为例[J]．沈阳师范大学学报（社会科学版），2005（03）．[7]欧·亨利．聪明人的礼物．上海：世界图书出版公司，1995．[8]王霞．《警察与赞美诗》的功能语言学分析[J]．山东外语教学，2005（01）．[9]武海玲．含泪的微笑——谈《警察与赞美诗》的语言艺术[J]．青海教育，1998（03）．[10]辛伟艳．反讽话语语用功能探究[J]．山西农业大学学报（社会科学版），2005（04）．[11]张乃奇．调侃法律赞美宗教——论《警察与赞美诗》的主题兼及其它[J]．辽宁师专学报（社会科学版），1999（05）．AcknowledgementsI would like to take this chance to express my gratitude to all people who have ever helped in this project.My sincere and hearty thanks and appreciations go firstly to Lecturer Liu Lamei, my supervisor. It is she who gave me such confidence that I have the ability to complete this study. It is she who passed on so much professional knowledge to conduct me how to start my thesis. It is she who took great pains to call attention to my mistakes. Under her wise and encouraging guidance, this dissertation was written and revised. It has been a great privilege and joy to study under her guidance and supervision. Furthermore, it is my honor to benefit from her personality and diligence. If this work can be of any merits, it is because of her.I am deeply indebted and grateful to all the course teachers in the school of Foreign Languages, Professor Pan Lifeng, and other teachers’wonderful lectures and intellectual discussion.Finally, I would like to express my sincere thanks to all my friends and classmates who gave me invaluable help and sustained encouragement when I was confused in the period of preparing this paper. To all of them, named and unnamed, I wish to extend my thanks.。