2.2.3 Humor as a Rhetorical Device 8

3. Humor Employed in “Babies in the Jungle” 9

3.1 Humor Implied in the Title and the Story Design 10

3.1.1 The Title 10

3.1.2 The Story Design 10

3.2 Humorous Rhetorical Skills in the Story 11

3.2.1 Hyperbole 11

3.2.2 Metaphor 11

3.2.3 Irony 12

3.3 Humor Embodied in the Characterization 13

3.3.1 Analysis of Silver’s Personalities 13

3.3.2 Analysis of Bill’s Personalities 14

3.4 Humor Implied in the Ending 14

4. Conclusion 15

1. Introduction

O. Henry is one of the greatest three masters of short stories in the world, and especially known as a master of surprising endings. He wrote more than three hundreds short stories in his life. Growing up in the bottom of the society, O. Henry had a profound understanding of how little people suffered at that time, and he always chose to stand in the side of little people and spoke for them. His life experience greatly affected his writing style, which is regarded as “O. Henry Style”, his short stories expressed strong focus on social reality, human nature, and relationship between inpiduals, meanwhile, had portrayed various types of people in the United States.

1.1 Background of This Study

Humorous is one of the most significant features of O. Henry’s short stories as he created his exclusive humorous style–laughing with tears. The plots in his short stories are usually touching and humorous, often with surprising endings to make readers laugh while still in tears. This is why his humorous style is regarded as laughing with tears. “Babies in the Jungle” is one of O. Henry’s humorous short stories. Though the story itself may not be familiar to the readers compared with O. Henry’s other humorous short stories like “The Cop and the Anthem” or “The gift of the Magi”, it’s still worth reading and analyzing as humor is fully used in plots, expressions, and characterization of the story. One of the most important meanings of this research is that most readers only know few about O. Henry’s stories, so it is time for them to know more and feel the charm of O. Henry’s humor.

1.2 Previous Studies on O. Henry’s Works 

    1.2.1 Studies at Home

The domestic researches on O. Henry’s short stories are fewer in comparison with researches on Chekhov’s and Maupassant’s short stories at the moment. Most of the core periodicals in China are especially lacking in representative theses or researches on O. Henry’s works. Domestic researches on O. Henry’s works have not formed an integral system yet, and there are complicated reasons for this. First of all, Chinese academic research was once guided by politics, O. Henry’s works seem to lack profundity and systematism in comparison with Maupassant and Chekhov. Besides, O. Henry’s short stories often put much emphasis on characterization and technical structures, which has made O. Henry’s works seem to be a heresy in literature. In fact, O. Henry was so driven by life that he could not always maintain his principles and standards, so he also wrote some controversial casual novels. As a result, O. Henry’s art world is like a confusing maze that makes it complicated for scholars to do further research. (Zhang, 1999)