摘 要

马克·吐温，19世纪美国著名作家。他的作品大多充满批判主义色彩，并真实地记录着美国历史，因此他的一生和其作品被誉为“美国的镜子”。本文主要通过马克·吐温的短片小说集来分析他对美国现实的批判，其中包括对美国政策的批判，对种族歧视的批判，以及对美国人性的批判，并总结马克·吐温批判主义的影响及意义。

关键词：马克·吐温；美国短篇小说；批判主义

Contents

1.Introduction................................................................................................................1

2.Demonstration............................................................................................................2

2.1 The criticism on American reality in Mark Twain’s short stories...........................2

2.1.1 The criticism on American politics....................................................................3

2.1.2 The criticism on American humanity...................................................................5

2.1.3 The criticism on racial discrimination...................................................................7

2.2 The influence of Mark Twain’s criticism.........................................................7

2.2.1 Recording the history truly...............................................................8

2.2.2 Uncovering the reality........................................................................8

2.3 The significance of Mark Twain’s criticism................................................9

1. Conclusion.................................................................................................................10

Works Cited..................................................................................................................11

Bibliography.................................................................................................................12

An Analysis of Mark Twain’s Critical Realism in His Short Stories

1. Introduction

Mark Twain (1835-1910) was an American writer and humorist, who became nationally famous for his stories of the youthful adventures of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer. His real name was Samuel Langhorne Clemens. Mark Twain was his pen name and was known to us. He was born in Florida, Missouri on November 30, 1835 and was brought up in Hannibal, a small town in Missouri where he spent his childhood. However, when he was twelve, his father died, so Twain had to leave school and made a living for himself. Later on, he became a printer as well as a journalist. All of his experience provided him with inspiration and material, hence, when he was very young, he began his writing.

In his early life, his works were full of humor, such as The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, Innocents Abroad, The Gilded Age and so on. However, in his rest life, he met lots of difficulties and barriers, which made him hate the bad social morality. As a result, he changed his writing style and criticized the reality of America. The representative works in this period include Following the Equator, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, The Mysterious Stronger, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, especially the short story Running For Governor, which uses ‘I’ as the protagonist. In this story, the author exposed the dirty inside story of American political circles. ‘Free election’ is a joke and ‘free speech’ is unreal in American society. Through this short story, Twain expresses his dissatisfaction with American politics and his criticism has exerts a great influence on American society at that time. The ₤1000,000 Bank-Note is also a famous short story full of criticism. It describes a money-oriented society, in which people often get lost in front of money and power. By telling the story of Henry Adams, the author shows his disgust for the attitudes towards money. People with these attitudes are often fragile and hypocritical, because their relationship is built on the desire for money. The bad social morality at that time is a malpractice of the development of capitalism. The short story A True Story is mainly about the criticism on racial discrimination. In a word, many works of Mark Twain are of great significance for promoting the development of criticism in America literature.

Mark Twain has made a great contribution to the 19^th century literature. Many researches have been done on his works . Most researchers have devoted themselves to studying Mark Twain’s humor and satire. Some of them have paid attention to his criticism. However, they usually use his novels as examples to analyze the main aspects of Mark Twain’s criticism. I think, many of his short stories also have great research value and I will use his short stories as examples to analyze Mark Twain’s criticism.

This thesis aims to analyze the main aspects of Mark Twain’s criticism by studying his short stories. The body of the thesis is composed to three sections. The first section will summarize the three aspects of Mark Twain’s criticism including the criticism on American politics, the criticism of racial discrimination and the criticism of humanity by studying his short stories Running For Governor, A True Story, The ₤1000,000 Bank-Note and The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg. The second section is mainly about the influence of Mark Twain’s criticism. This section will include two points: recording the history truly and uncovering the reality. The last section focuses on the significance of Mark Twain’s criticism.

2. Demonstration

2.1. The criticism on American reality in Mark Twain’s short stories