1. 研究目的与意义（文献综述包含参考文献）

1.introduction

1.1 research background

the american short story writer o. henry (1862 - 1910) was born under the name william sydney porter in greensboro, north carolina in 1862. he is one of the most famous american critical realist short story writers and one of the world#8217;s top three masters of the short stories. he experienced many sufferings in his life time. his life is a legend and full of romantics. o. henry's early career aspirations were unfixed and he wandered across different activities and professions before he finally decided to become a short story writer. o. henry wrote more than 300 short stories in his life, such as ”the gift of the magi”, ”the cop and the anthem”, ”the last left” and many others. o. henry had an obvious affection for new york city, a dignity that rises up through some of these stories. his short stories are well known throughout the world and famous for their vivid plots, frequent coincidences, unexpected endings, humorous languages and so on. being gifted with humor and a keen awareness of details, he objectively shows us what america looks like. he creates a true and original american society from in his short stories. o. henry was sympathetic to the misfortunes of the low levels of society, loving the nature of virtue, hating the exploitation by and non-conscientiousness of the upper class society. ”a distortion of the facts” and”dream” are adopted in his short stories to reveal the dark society. it can be said that he wore masks, hided the edge of criticism and picked up the weapon of humor. when his writings reveal and criticize the society, the reader can see big things from small ones. as a realistic writer, o. henry provides a panorama of the society reality at that time. this is a big aspect. however, o. henry writes the poorest people in the society. through describing the life of these little people, the big background of society unfolded in front of the readers. although living in the big city, new york, he preferred to write four million ordinary people rather than big prominent capitalists. o. henry lived at the bottom of new york. he used to sit in front of the door and closely observe pedestrians wandering in the street. therefore, the thief, the police, the assistant, the waitress, the frustrated artist in the book are all vividly portrayed. the beauty in human nature can be well shown in these ordinary people. o. henry uses many peculiar writing methods in his short story such as black humor language, full of contrast, short surprising ending and ironic coincidences. o. henry is famous for his surprising ending. in fact, the most remarkable characteristic of o. henry short stories was surprising ending. no one could surpass him in holding the reader in ”suspended”. more than that, the readers scarcely know that they are”suspended”until at the very close of the story. the readers would feel surprised at the first glance, while immediately show their comprehension for the surprising ending for they are many clues to infer the ending, such as the humor language, and ironic coincidences. language also embodies his artistic feature in o.henry stories. the black humor language presents sufficiently in the book. o. henry loves to use black and humorous language to serve the comedy in his stories, to entertain the readers, and let readers know intrinsic and serious thought from the funny and ridiculous description. other writing methods will be discussed in detail in the essay.

2. 研究的基本内容、问题解决措施及方案

Research Methodology

This thesis is aimed to have a comprehensive analysis of writing methods in O. Henry#8217;s short stories. Major research methods will include document research, contrast and deduction. 1). Document Research. A document research is the process of reading, analyzing, evaluating, and summarizing scholarly materials about a specific work. The author of the thesis has looked up in many libraries some background information, including O. Henry#8217;s short stories ”The Cops and The Anthem, ”The Last left”,” The gift of the Magi” , previous studies on O. Henry and some writing methods. In the meantime, the academic database and online materials are used as the references of the study. 2).Contrast. It refers to the logical method of comparing two things in order to show their similarities and differences, which is a major strategy in text analysis. The thesis will make a lot of comparisons and contrasts in the literature review so as to highlight the initiation and distinctiveness of the present study. In the main body of the thesis, contrast will be widely made in the analysis of similarities and subversions of the two texts. 3).Deduction. This method refers to the drawing of a conclusion by reasoning. In the main body of the thesis, every conclusion will be followed by well-grounded reasoning. For example, to exemplify my point, I will quote the sentences in the stories.