★★★★ Seeking to study the writing style of O Henry's short story ★

September 1862, 1 1 There is a small town called Green Sboro in North Carolina, not far from Washington. A frustrated doctor in a small town and his beautiful and delicate wife gave birth to a child with big eyes and not strong. Unexpectedly, at the end of 19 and the beginning of the 20th century, this child entered the literary world under the pseudonym of O. Henry, and became a great novelist deeply loved by readers in the United States and even the world, and still maintained a long-term influence and charm after a hundred years.

O Henry's life is bumpy, hard and unfortunate. At the age of three, he lost his mother, 15 went into society. He used to be a shepherd boy, a pharmacist and so on. Clerks, clerks, cartographers, cashiers and other occupations. 1889, he and Luo Qi eloped and got married despite their parents' opposition, and with the encouragement of their young wife, they embarked on the creative road, founded Rolling Stone magazine and published humorous sketches. Later, he was sentenced to five years in prison for misappropriating bank funds. After he was released from prison, he moved to new york to specialize in writing and provided a short story for Le Monde every week. However, due to the misfortune of his second marriage and alcoholism, he finally 19 10 died in new york on June 5th.

19 from the 1980s to the early 20th century, with the development of capitalism to monopoly, various social contradictions became increasingly prominent in the United States. O Henry lived in the lower class for a long time, and various social phenomena made him feel these contradictions. With his tortuous life, rich experience, unique perspective and keen observation, he can't help but vividly summarize various social phenomena in his works, such as poverty and hardship of the working people at the lower level, hypocritical upper-level swindlers, financial oligarchs who exploit loopholes, unscrupulous trading of official titles, the lives of thieves, robbers and tramps, unemployment and crime. He was full of sympathy for the poor, criticized and exposed the bourgeois exploiters from different angles, and expressed the angry resistance and desire of the lower working people against exploitation and oppression.

O Henry wrote more than 270 short stories and a novel, as well as some poems. O Henry's poetry creation reflects his attitude towards the social contradictions faced by nature and life. He wrote about birds and ancient villages, eulogized vagrants, eulogized "The Boy Singing a Lullaby" in a gloomy style, and criticized unreasonable social phenomena. However, due to the small number and small achievements, the impact is very small. On the contrary, many of his letters are wonderful essays. He talked with the editor about life and creation, expressing the author's attitude towards life and creative thoughts. O Henry's representative works include The Gift of the Maggie, The Police, Hymns and The Last Leaf. His famous novels include Yellow Bird Behind, Municipal Report, Furnished Room, Double Liar and so on. His true and accurate details and vivid and concise language make a series of vivid artistic images present to readers, which also makes him occupy an important position in the history of short stories in the world. Someone once compared him to "Mo Bosang of America", which makes sense.

Humor is one of American literary traditions. Since washington irving, many writers have been good at writing interesting and meaningful stories. Owen's humor contains a trace of irony in his well-meaning teasing; Mark Twain's humor reveals the truth in life with his slang-filled spoken language, witty description and extremely exaggerated image. Irwin shaw's humor focuses on describing the humor of the characters. O Henry inherited this tradition and was influenced by contemporary writers. The rough life experience made his unique humor unique-full of bitter laughter, and contained depression and sadness in exaggerated, ironic, humorous and humorous humor. Reading "The Gift of the Magi" makes people smile bitterly, while reading "The Police and Hymns" makes people sad and bitter. This "tearful smile" deepens the social significance of the work and has long-term artistic charm.

The handling of the ending of the novel is O Henry's most creative contribution, which also makes him famous in the history of American and world literature. He is good at dramatically designing plots, paving the way, sketching contradictions, and finally there is an unexpected ending at the end, which makes readers feel suddenly enlightened, unexpected and reasonable, and can't help but marvel. However, due to the author's fast and numerous writing speed, this technique is overused, which inevitably makes people feel obvious similarities and formulaic disadvantages. His novels often end unexpectedly; It is also called "Humorous Encyclopedia of American Life" because it describes many characters and is full of interest in life.

O Henry deserves to be one of the "three great short story writers in the world", and his superb writing skills have given his novels the title of "O Henry Style".

The following is an appreciation of O 'Henry's masterpiece The Gift of the Magi:

The article "Maggie's Gift" set a suspense at the beginning. Della only has one yuan and eighty cents, but tomorrow is Christmas, and she doesn't have enough money to buy a present for her husband. The author then described Della's beautiful hair and Jim's gold watch. Della reluctantly gave up a gold watch chain she wanted to buy for Jim and sold a head of hair. When Jim came back, she found that her husband saw her short hair and his expression was wrong. There is another suspense here. When Della opened the present that Jim gave her, we suddenly realized that Jim had given his wife a set of combs, and Della didn't need them any more. Then, to Della's surprise, her gift was useless because Jim's gold watch was also sold. The story ends here, but it gives people endless aftertaste. This is a typical "O Henry plot" and "O Henry ending", from which we can learn about O Henry's writing style.

The article is full of "the language of O 'Henry", humorous, witty and witty, and makes good use of exaggeration and metaphor. As the saying goes, "Now, his income has shrunk to 20 yuan, and the letter' dillingham' is ambiguous, as if he is seriously considering whether to abbreviate it into the humble and practical letter D", which adds comedy to the helplessness of the poor.

The description of the characters in the article is also very delicate. He used exaggeration and metaphor to describe Della as slim, dexterous and slim, especially her hair. "If the Queen of Sheba also lives in the apartment opposite the patio, Della will let her hair hang freely and expose it outside the window to dry one day, which will make the Queen's pearl baby pale." "Della's hair splashed everywhere, rippling and shining like a brown waterfall." He described Jim like this, "Jim stood at the door of the house, motionless as if the hound smelled quail." His eyes were fixed on della. "'You mean your hair is gone?' He asked almost like an idiot. "The image of a husband who loves his wife and is willing to sell his ancestral heirloom to buy a gift for his wife is vividly portrayed.

After reading this article, we can't help feeling sorry that the poor couple sold their most precious things for their lover, but the gifts they gave each other were useless. Nevertheless, we are still aware of the purity and kindness of this couple, their eternal love, and the hardships and bitterness of the lower class life in America. The author gave them deep sympathy and blessings.

The last paragraph reveals the profound theme of the article. Maggie originally referred to the three sages who gave gifts from the East when the baby Christ was born. The author calls them Maggie, which shows his respect and love for the working people, and at the same time gives them a sacred color, which is a gift with humanity and shining light of love.