第1个回答 2008-03-20
O. Henry was the pen name of American writer William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862–June 5, 1910), whose clever use of twist endings in his stories popularized the term "O. Henry Ending". His middle name at birth was Sidney, not Sydney; he later changed the spelling of his middle name when he first began writing as a journalist in the 1880s.
Early life
William Sidney Porter was born in 1862 on a plantation "Worth Place" in Greensboro, North Carolina. When William was three, his mother died from tuberculosis, and he and his father moved to the home of his paternal grandmother.
William was an avid reader, and graduated from his aunt's elementary school in 1876, then enrolled at the Linsey Street High School. In 1879 he started working as a bookkeeper in his uncle's drugstore and in 1881 – at the age of nineteen – he was licensed as a pharmacist.
The Move to Texas
He relocated to Texas in 1882, initially working on a ranch in La Salle County as a sheep herder and ranch hand, then Austin where he took a number of different jobs over the next several years, including pharmacist, draftsman, journalist, and clerk. While in Texas he also learned Spanish.
In 1887 he eloped with Athol Estes, then eighteen years old and from a wealthy family. Her family objected to the match because both she and Porter suffered from tuberculosis. Athol gave birth to a son in 1888, who died shortly after birth, and then a daughter, Margaret, in 1889.
In 1894 Porter started a humorous weekly called The Rolling Stone. Also in 1894, Porter resigned from the First National Bank of Austin where he had worked as a teller, after he was accused of embezzling funds. In 1895, after The Rolling Stone ceased publication, he moved to Houston, where he started writing for the Houston Post. Shortly thereafter, he was arrested for embezzlement in connection with his previous employment in Austin.
Flight and Return
Porter was granted bond, but the day before he was due to stand trial on July 7, 1896, he absconded to New Orleans and later to Honduras. However, in 1897, when he learned that his wife was dying, he returned to the United States and surrendered to the court, pending an appeal.
Athol Estes Porter died July 25, 1897. Porter was found guilty of embezzlement, sentenced to five years jail, and imprisoned April 25, 1898 at the Ohio State Penitentiary. He was released on July 24, 1901 for good behaviour after serving three years.
Origin of Pen Name
Porter published at least twelve stories while in prison to help support his daughter. Not wanting his readers to know he was in jail, he started using the pen name "O. Henry". It is believed that Porter got this name from one of the guards who was named Orrin Henry. However, there is much debate on this issue: one Porter biographer asserts that the name was derived from a girlfriend's cat, which answered to "Oh, Henry!" Guy Davenport, meanwhile, wrote that the name was a condensation of "Ohio Penitentiary". It also could be an abbreviation of the name of French pharmacist, Etienne-Ossian Henry, who is referred to in the U.S. Dispensatory, a reference work Porter used when he was in the prison pharmacy. Further confusing the issue is that for at least one short story, and for a later autobiographical author profile, Porter signed the "full" name Olivier Henry.
Porter also used a number of other noms de plume, most notably "Alex, Longford", and continued using a variety of pen names full-time when he took a writing contract for Ainslee's Magazine in New York City shortly after his release from prison. Eventually, "O. Henry" became the name that was most recognized by magazine editors and the reading public, and therefore led to the greatest fees for story sales. Accordingly, after about 1903 Porter used the "O. Henry" byline exclusively.
In fact, after his prison term Porter almost never identified himself in print by his real name, even in private correspondence to close friends. To editors, he was simply O. Henry (or occasionally Olivier Henry). When writing to friends, however, he would routinely sign his letters with one of a wide range of deliberately nonsensical pseudonyms, such as "Horatio Swampwater".
A Brief Stay At The Top
Porter married again in 1907 to his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Lindsey Coleman. However, despite the success of his short stories being published in magazines and collections (or perhaps because of the attendant pressure success brought), Porter became an alcoholic. Sarah left him in 1909, and he died in 1910 of cirrhosis of the liver. After funeral services in New York City, he was buried in Asheville, North Carolina. His daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, died in 1927 and was buried with her father.
Attempts were made to secure a presidential pardon for Porter during the administrations of Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan. However, each attempt was met with the assertion that the Justice Department did not recommend pardons after death. This policy was clearly altered during the administration of Bill Clinton (who pardoned Henry Flipper), so the question of a pardon for O. Henry may yet again see the light of day.
Stories
O. Henry stories are famous for their surprise endings. He was called the American Guy De Maupassant. Both authors wrote twist endings, but O. Henry stories were much more playful and optimistic.
Most of O.Henry's stories are set in his own time, the early years of the 20th century. Many take place in New York City, and deal for the most part with ordinary people: clerks, policemen, waitresses. His stories are also well known for witty narration.
The Four Million (a collection of stories) opens with a reference to Ward McAllister's "assertion that there were only 'Four Hundred' people in New York City who were really worth noticing. But a wiser man has arisen—the census taker—and his larger estimate of human interest has been preferred in marking out the field of these little stories of the 'Four Million'". To O. Henry, everyone in New York counted. He had an obvious affection for the city, which he called Baghdad on the Subway, and many of his stories are set there—but others are set in small towns and in other cities.
His famous story A Municipal Report opens by quoting Frank Norris: "Fancy a novel about Chicago or Buffalo, let us say, or Nashville, Tennessee! There are just three big cities in the United States that are 'story cities' — New York, of course, New Orleans, and, best of the lot, San Francisco." Thumbing his nose at Norris, O. Henry sets the story in Nashville.
Fundamentally a product of his time, O. Henry's work provides one of the best English examples of catching the entire flavor of an age. Whether roaming the cattle-lands of Texas, exploring the art of the "gentle grifter", or investigating the tensions of class and wealth in turn of the century New York, O. Henry had an inimitable hand for isolating some element of society and describing it with an incredible economy and grace of language. Some of his best and least-known work resides in the collection "Cabbages and Kings", a series of stories which each explore some individual aspect of life in a paralytically sleepy South American town while each advancing some aspect of the larger plot and relating back one to another in a complex structure which slowly explicates its own background even as it painstakingly erects a town which is one of the most detailed literary creations of the period.
Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow. O. Henry is so famous for his unexpected plot twists that this warning is especially important.
A famous story of his, "The Gift of the Magi", concerns a young couple who are short of money but desperately want to buy each other Christmas gifts. Unbeknownst to Jim, Della sells her most valuable possession, her beautiful hair, in order to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim's watch; unbeknownst to Della, Jim sells his most valuable possession, his watch, to buy jeweled combs for Della's hair. The essential premise of this story has been copied, re-worked, parodied, and otherwise re-told countless times in the century since it was written.
The Ransom of Red Chief concerns two men who kidnap a boy of ten. The boy turns out to be so bratty and obnoxious that the desperate men ultimately pay the boy's father two hundred and fifty dollars to take him back.
The Cop and the Anthem concerns a New York City hobo named Soapy, who sets out to get arrested so he can spend the cold winter as a guest of the city jail. Despite efforts at petty theft, vandalism, disorderly conduct, and "mashing", Soapy fails to draw the attention of the police. Disconsolate, he pauses in front of a church, where an organ anthem inspires him to clean up his life - whereupon he is promptly arrested for loitering.
In A Retrieved Reformation, safecracker Jimmy Valntine gets a job in a small town bank to case it for a robbery. Unexpectedly, he falls in love with the banker's daughter, and decides to go straight. Just as he's about to leave to deliver his specialized tools to an old associate, a lawman who recognizes him arrives at the bank, and a child locks herself in the airtight vault. Knowing it will seal his fate, Valentine cracks open the safe to rescue the child - and the lawman lets him go.
[edit] Cultural relations
O. Henry once said: "There are stories in everything. I've got some of my best yarns from park benches, lampposts, and newspaper stands." [citation needed]
The O. Henry Awards are yearly prizes given to outstanding short stories.
The O. Henry Pun-Off World Championships are held in May of each year in Austin, Texas, hosted by the city's O. Henry Museum.
O. Henry is a household name in Russia, as his books enjoyed excellent translations and some of his stories were made into popular movies, the best known being, probably, "The Ransom of Red Chief". The phrase "Bolivar cannot carry double" from "The Roads We Take" has become a Russian proverbs, whose origin many Russians do not even recognize.
O. Henry's first wife, Athol, was probably the model for Della[1].
In 1952 a film featuring five O. Henry stories was made. The primary one from the critic's acclaim was "The Cop and the Anthem" starring Charles Laughton and Marilyn Monroe. The other stories are "The Clarion Call," "The Last Leaf," "The Ransom of Red Chief," and "The Gift of the Magi."
There is an O. Henry Middle School in Austin.
1862年9月11日，距华盛顿州不远的北卡罗来纳州有一个名叫格林斯波罗的小镇。小镇里一位不得志的医生和他美丽纤弱的妻子生了一个大眼睛、不大强壮的孩子。谁也不曾想到，在19世纪末20世纪初，这个孩子以欧·亨利的笔名平步文坛，成为一个深受美国和世界读者喜欢的伟大小说家，并且在百年之后仍然保持着长久的影响和魅力。
欧·亨利的人生之路崎岖、艰苦而又不幸，他三岁丧母，15岁就走向社会，从事过牧童、药剂师、�事、办事员、制图员、出纳员等多种职业。1889年，他和罗琦不顾她父母的反对私奔成婚，并在年轻妻子鼓励下走上创作道路，创办《滚石》杂志，发表幽默小品。后来，他因挪用银行资金被判五年徒刑。出狱后，他迁居纽约专门从事写作，每周为世界报提供一个短篇，但因第二次婚姻的不幸，加之饮酒过度，终于1910年6月5日在纽约病逝。
19世纪80年代至20世纪初的美国，随着资本主义逐渐向垄断发展，各种社会矛盾日益显露突出。欧·亨利长期生活在下层，形形色色的社会现象使他对这些矛盾心感身受。曲折的人生、丰富的经历、独特的视角和敏锐的观察，使他情不自禁地把社会的各种现象形象地概括在自己的作品中，如下层劳动群众生活的贫穷艰辛，道貌岸然的上流骗子，巧取豪夺的金融寡头，肆无忌惮的买卖官爵，小偷、强盗、流浪汉的生活，以及失业、犯罪等等。对贫民他充满了同情，对资产阶级剥削者从不同角度予以批判与揭露，道出了下层劳动群众对剥削、压迫的愤怒反抗与心声。
欧·亨利一生创作了270多个短篇小说和一部长篇小说，还有数量很少的诗歌。欧·亨利的诗歌创作反映了他对自然、人生所面临的社会矛盾的态度，他写小鸟、古老的村庄，歌颂流浪者，以阴郁的笔调吟颂“唱催眠曲的男孩”，抨击不合理的社会现象。但因数量少、成就不大，因而影响很小。相反，他的许多书信倒是精彩的随笔，他同编辑谈生活，谈创作，表达作者的生活态度和创作思想。欧·亨利的代表作品是《麦琪的礼物》、《警察与赞美诗》和《最后一片叶子》。其著名小说还有《黄雀在后》、《市政报告》、《配供家具的客房》、《双料骗子》等，真实准确的细节描写，生动简洁的语言使一系列栩栩如生的艺术形象展现在读者面前，也使他在世界短篇小说史上占有重要位置。有人曾将他比做“美国的莫泊桑”，这是有其道理的。
幽默是美国的文学传统之一。从华盛顿·欧文开始，许多作家都善于写那些有趣可笑而又意味深长的故事。欧文的幽默是在善意的揶揄之中含有淡淡的讽刺；马克·吐温的幽默以充满俚语的口语，滑稽、俏皮的描写和极夸张的形象，揭示了生活中的真理；欧文·肖的幽默则在注重描述人物性格的幽默风趣上。欧·亨利承袭这一传统，受同时代作家的影响，加之一生经历坎坷，使得他独特的幽默与众不同——充满了辛酸的笑声，在夸张、嘲讽、风趣、诙谐、机智的幽默之中，含有抑郁、凄楚的情绪。读《麦琪的礼物》让人苦笑，读《警察与赞美诗》让人悲凉辛酸。这种“含泪的微笑”，加深了作品的社会意义，具有长久的艺术魅力。
处理小说的结尾，是欧·亨利最具创造性的贡献，也使他在美国和世界文学史上享有盛名。他善于戏剧性地设计情节，埋下伏笔，作好铺垫，勾勒矛盾，最后在结尾处出现一个出人意料的结局，使读者感到豁然开朗，柳暗花明，既在意料之外，又在情理之中，不禁拍案称奇。但由于作者写作速度快且多，这种手法运用过多过滥，不免使人感到有明显的雷同和公式化的弊端。他的小说的结局常常出人意外；又因描写了众多的人物，富于生活情趣，被誉为“美国生活的幽默百科全书”。
欧·亨利不愧为“世界三大短篇小说家”之一，其高超的写作技巧，使得他的小说有了“欧·亨利式”这一称号。
以下是欧.亨利的名作《麦琪的礼物》赏析 ：
《麦琪的礼物》这篇文章，一开头就设置悬念，德拉只有一元八毛，可是明天就是圣诞节了，她不够钱给丈夫买礼物，作者接着围绕德拉一头美丽的秀发和杰姆的金表展开描写，德拉为了给吉姆买他梦寐以求的金表表链，忍痛割爱，卖掉了一头的秀发。等到吉姆回来，她发现丈夫看见她的短发，神情不对，在这里又设下了一个悬念，待德拉打开杰姆送给她的礼物，我们才恍然大悟，原来吉姆送给妻子一套发梳，德拉已经用不着了，接着，德拉送礼物给吉姆，再次出人意料，德拉的礼物也派不上用场了，因为吉姆的金表也卖掉了。故事到此结束，却给人回味无穷。这是典型的“欧·亨利式情节”和“欧·亨利结局”，欧·亨利的写作风格我们可以从这里大概了解到一些。
文章极具“欧·亨利式的语言”，幽默、风趣、诙谐、俏皮、善用夸张和比喻。如那句“现在，他的收入缩减到二十美元，‘迪林厄姆’ 的字母也显得模糊不清，似乎它们正严肃地思忖着是否缩写成谦逊而又讲求实际的字母D。”给穷人生活的无奈增添了喜剧的色彩。
文章还极为细腻地刻画了人物的形象，他描写德拉瘦小而灵巧，身材苗条，特别是形容她的头发，用了夸张和比喻的手法，“如果示巴女王也住在天井对面的公寓里，总有一天德拉会把头发披散下来，露出窗外晾干，使那女王的珍珠宝贝黔然失色。” “德拉的秀发泼撒在她的周围，微波起伏，闪耀光芒，有如那褐色的瀑布。”他描写吉姆，“吉姆站在屋里的门口边，纹丝不动地好像猎犬嗅到了鹌鹑的气味似的。他的两眼固定在德拉身上”。“‘你说你的头发没有了吗？’他差不多是白痴似地问道。”把一个疼爱妻子，甘愿把祖传家宝卖掉为妻子买礼物的丈夫的形象生动地刻画出来。
读完这篇文章，我们不免感到遗憾那对贫穷的夫妻，为了爱人，他们卖掉了自己最为珍贵的东西，可是他们送给对方的礼物却都没有用处了。尽管这样，我们还是从中体会到那对夫妻的纯洁和善良，体会到他们永恒的爱情，同时也领会到美国下层人民生活的艰难和辛酸，作者对他们事实给予了深深的同情和祝福的。
最后一段，揭示文章的深刻主题，麦琪本是指圣婴基督出生时来自东方送礼的三贤人，作者把他们称作是麦琪，表现了他对劳动人民的尊重和热爱，同时给他们的礼物披上了神圣的色彩，是具有人性的，闪烁着爱的光芒的礼物。