Modernistic Elements In O.Henry's Short Stories

O. Henry is a famous short-story writer in the United States at the beginning of the 20th century. During his literary career, he has written over three hundred stories, which are characterized by vivid plots, frequent coincidences, humorous language and surprise endings, hence making up what is called 'O. Henry's technique'. In the description of the events and incidents taken from everyday life, O. Henry presents the reader with a full picture of American society at his time. Nearly all the books on criticism and history of literature classify O. Henry as a writer in the realm of realism or critical realism; and his reputation in literature has been declining ever since the beginning of the 20th century when modernism swept the western literature. The author of the present thesis argues that there are obvious modernistic elements in O. Henry's works, which has long been ignored by critics in general.The present thesis first explains why O. Henry exploits modernistic elements in his writings. On the one hand, O. Henry's gloomy outlook on the world and life is in accord with that of the modernists, so he exploits unconsciously modernistic elements in his short stories. On the other hand, O. Henry resorts consciously to the exploitation of modernistic elements in writing in order to please editors and publishers.Then the thesis illustrates with adequate examples the modernistic...