The Development Of Mark Twain's Humor From Frontier Humor To Black Humor In Four Of His Short Stories

Mark Twain(1835-1910), one of the most remarkable writers in the 19 th century,has successfully established himself as the “greatest American humorist”. He started publishing humor sketches in 1851. His fiction takes in almost all the prominent aspects of American humor. However, humor in his stories is not similar to that of his predecessors or peers, for they always have Twain's own mark. Roughly divided into three periods, his short stories have their own dominant type of humor in each period.This thesis selects four of his stories to be representative of three periods, “The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”(“The Jumping Frog” for short)representative of earlier works, “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg” and “The$30,000 Bequest” of transitional period, and “The Mysterious Stranger” of later period. Applying a variety of humor theories, the thesis will analyze how Twain's humor develops from frontier humor to black humor.Twain's first famous short piece “The Jumping Frog” employs the frame structure and catches the hilarious pathos of traditional American frontier humor.But meanwhile it subverts its thematic concern by directing its criticism against the ostensible gentility of easterners and toward the shrewd crudity of westerners. Across to transitional period, signs of frontier humor, features of tall tales and adoption of the Cracker-barrel Philosopher, can still be perceived in “The Man That CorruptedHadleyburg” and “The $30,000 Bequest”. But more importantly, black humor begins to emerge and even takes its lead. Stylistically, their circular structure, antiheroes and the blurred boundary between fantasy and reality manifest the major elements of black humor. Twain's later life is haunted by bankruptcy, ailments and family deaths.Irreverence looms large in his life philosophy. Thus black humor dominates in his later story “The Mysterious Stranger”. Most apparently, its stylistic elements are characteristic of black humor, including loose structure, wasteland setting and antiheroes. And the line between dream and reality becomes almost invisible.Nonetheless, no matter how Twain's humor changes, he always retains one staple element, that is, the continuing focus on irony. With it, Twain expresses his pessimistic view toward human nature, social systems, and finally even the existence of man in the universe.