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CHỦ NGHĨA NHÂN đạo TRONG TRUYỆN NGẮN món QUÀ của các đạo sĩ BUỒNG TẦNG THƯỢNG CHIẾC lá CUỐI CÙNG của o HENRYCHỦ NGHĨA NHÂN đạo TRONG TRUYỆN NGẮN món QUÀ của các đạo sĩ BUỒNG TẦNG THƯỢNG CHIẾC lá CUỐI CÙNG của o HENRYCHỦ NGHĨA NHÂN đạo TRONG TRUYỆN NGẮN món QUÀ của các đạo sĩ BUỒNG TẦNG THƯỢNG CHIẾC lá CUỐI CÙNG của o HENRYCHỦ NGHĨA NHÂN đạo TRONG TRUYỆN NGẮN món QUÀ của các đạo sĩ BUỒNG TẦNG THƯỢNG CHIẾC lá CUỐI CÙNG của o HENRYCHỦ NGHĨA NHÂN đạo TRONG TRUYỆN NGẮN món QUÀ của các đạo sĩ BUỒNG TẦNG THƯỢNG CHIẾC lá CUỐI CÙNG của o HENRY
i ABSTRACT Besides part I (Introduction) and part III (Conclusion), in the graduation paper there are three chapters in part II (Main content) which mainly focuses upon Humanism in three short stories The skylight room, The gift of the magi and The last leaf by O. Henry. In Chapter 1, it gives a brief review on Literary theory which covers the conception and functions of Literature, the definition of Humanism and characteristics of Humanism. Notably, the three characteristics of Humanism referred to in part 2.2, listed as compassion, reality and love with life, are related to Humanism in the three stories analysed in the graduation paper. Chapter 2 provides general background knowledge of America’s setting and literature in the late 19 th century and the early 20 th century, O. Henry’s important events in his life and his writing style. The summaries of the three stories are also included in this chapter. The last and the main one, chapter 3 deals with three major features of Humanism in the three short stories, respectively as sympathy for the characters’ poor life and their destiny, praise of characters’ moral virtues and their good qualities, and hope for a better life. Then, a small part quickly pointing out some features on O. Henry’s writing style is added. As a whole, this graduation paper is my response to O. Henry’s great works whose humanity regarded as its beauty. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE Acknowledgement i Abstract ii I. Introduction 1. Rationale for the study 2. Aims and objectives 3. Scope of the study 4. Methodology 1 1 1 2 2 II. Content Chapter 1: Literary theory 1. Theory on Literature 1.1. Definitions of Literature? 1.2. Functions of Literature 2. Theory on Humanism 2.1. What is Humanism? 2.2. Characteristics of Humanism Chapter 2: O. Henry’s life and works 1. Historical background in America in the late 19 th century and the early 20 th century 2. American literature in the late 19 th century and the early 20 th century 3. O. Henry’s life and works 3.1. Life and main events 3.2. Writing style 3.3. General introductions and summaries of the three short stories The last leaf, The skylight room and The gift of the magi Chapter 3: Humanism in the three short stories The last leaf, The 3 3 3 3 4 6 6 7 9 9 10 12 12 14 15 17 17 24 31 35 iii skylight room and The gift of the magi 1. Sympathy for the characters’ poor life and their destiny 2. Praise of the characters’ moral virtues and their good qualities 3. Hope for a better life 4. A glimpse at O. Henry’s writing style in the three stories III. Conclusion 37 IV. Reference 39 iv I. Introduction 1. Rationale for the study Among many American reputable authors during the late 19 th century and the early 20 th century as Mark Twain, Jack London or Walt Whitman, Oliver Henry also gets his name remembered in readers’ mind so deeply that whenever it comes to American realist literature, his name can hardly be neglected and he is considered as a great monument in American literature. His stories have been “widely read throughout the world, and even though in the eyes of some they may not be considered first-rate literature, they have become a significant part of the short story genre” (Wilton Eckley, 1994). Commenting on O. Henry’s writing style, outstanding features represented in his works are not figuratively literary sentences but a massive number of his short stories written in a short time, closely connected storyline and particularly his great humanity. The author has achieved reputation on the success of his famous works in which there are three stories analyzed in this graduation paper, namely The gift of the magi, The skylight room and The last leaf which were voted as some of the author’s best stories by Kessinger Publishing in 1899. 2. Aims and objectives Humanism is a remarkable characteristic in O. Henry’s works. Studying his works, the author’s concept of life and humans, ideology and writing style can be inferred. This may give readers an overall outlook on O. Henry’s humanity clearly evoked by the three famous stories The gift of the magi, The skylight room and The last leaf. 3. Scope of the study The graduation paper works on three of O. Henry’s short famous stories The last leaf, The skylight room and The gift of the magi but does not cover all 1 their aspects. It is humanism that gets focused on only. However, not only the content but also the author’s writing style is referred to. 4. Methodology In this graduation paper, some methods are used such as analysis, comparison and synthesis. To be more detailed, ideas, theories on Literature and Humanism including their definitions, functions and characteristics, are collected and chosen to be suitable with the aims and the scope of the graduation paper. Some famous sayings are also used as quoted. The foremost part is Analysis, which not only requires thorough analysis but compares the three stories with other works by O. Henry and some other authors. There are mutual comparisons and contrasts among the characters to find out their common features and their different ones as well. II. Content *Chapter 1: Literature theory* 2 1. Theory on Literature 1.1. Definitions of Literature? The term Literature has been used for a long time but many people may not know what it exactly is. The definitions of Literature are varied and changeable at different times, in different places, and based on different background knowledge, culture, social context, and so on. It is common knowledge that Literature may be a written and printed text in form of stories, poems, novels, or even speeches or on-line texts. It may bring about great, moral and meaningful messages or lessons or contain useful information about the world’s facts and events. Some people may insist that Literature must be literal, ornate and flowery works. However, literature may be diaries and proses which almost simply tell events and express feelings as well. According to the website Dictionary.com, Literature is “expression and form, in connection with ideas of permanent and universal interests”, which mainly deals with the aspect of topics and ideas in a literal work. The content of a literature work must refer to popular, interesting or helpful affairs that are concerned about by readers. The content may be various, ranging from relationship between family members, lovers or friends to social, economic, environment or politics affairs. Another definition comes from linguists. Ezra Pound (1885-1972), an American expatriate said that “Literature is simply language charged with meaning to the utmost possible degree” and Terry Eagleton, an English literary theorist also said that Literature “transforms and intensifies ordinary language”. In my own words, Literature can be defined as the creation by meaning through form. These definitions highlight the aspects of form and linguistic behaviors. It means that Literature is words 3 that are transferred into written, spoken or signed form. It is not simply a chaotic mix of words but has its sense that makes the beauty of the works. Above all, I would like to offer the third definition, also the foremost largely acknowledged one by M. Gorki (1868-1936): “Literature is Anthropology”. In a brief explanation, Literature is written by and for humans. It is derived from life and tells about anything related to life. It may be a real event in the past or at present, a fiction imagined by the writer, a line of thought coming into mind or anything else. It is considered as a mirror of human life and a key to human soul. Thanks to Literature, readers cannot only know more about life but also understand more about both writers and themselves. Whatever literature is, it cannot be denied that Literature plays an important role in human life. It serves as an ample source of delicious dishes for humans’ mental life and enriches tough souls with its beauty. 1.2. Functions of Literature As it comes to the functions of Literature, they mainly focus on the purposes of writing literal works. Literature is a mental activity undertaken by both creators and receivers. To adopt the viewpoint of Nguyen Hung in Functions of Literature (2011), the main functions of Literature are clarified as Cognition, Education and Art. Other functions can be listed as Communication or Interaction, Entertainment and Struggle. First of all, in the position of recipients, thanks to Literature readers can “cognize”, “self-cognize” and “reform”. Reading literary works may draw great inspirations and create exists for readers to take an honest and overall look on themselves. Studying one’s works, readers may discover his soul’s deep corners and his personalities shown by the ways he uses words and gives his opinions toward others. Readers may understand or sympathize with writers’ mood swings. In other 4 words, with one’s writings, readers can build a relatively all-sided portrait of the writer. Another important function of Literature is education. Readers can perceive ambient environment and gain a large amount of knowledge contained in literary works. Literary works as “course books about life” reflect many aspects of real life as culture, language, history, biology, geography, politics and economics. Authentic materials collected from the real life and contained in literary works can fit gaps in people’s knowledge. In addition, as devoted guides, literary works can help readers learn by themselves how to choose and use words, how to organize ideas into a logical set or what methods of meaning transference are. Educative feature is retained in works’ content as well. It is related to a famous saying by Zhu Xi (1130-1200), a well-known Chinese Confucian, “Literal works always bring its morality”. Moral lessons, norms and rules, hopes, encouragements, pieces of advice and ideology that writers expect to be perceived by their readers may be expressed directly or indirectly. In many cases, big writers have to play their role as teachers or consultants to orient readers towards right ideology and sound life style. Thirdly, Literature is a form of art which brings its sense of beauty and entertainment, and “assesses readers’ artistic abilities”. At the beginning, literature helps relax and brings joy and peace to readers. Then, after deeply thinking, experiencing, cognizing and judging, readers can perceive the beauty of the works shown in ways of creating characters, skillfully mastered language, explicit or implicit messages, beautiful souls of the writers, and so on. Besides, the process of reading and feeling is the process of communicating while literary works are bridges between writers and readers. At first, readers may know more about writers’ life such as family background, relationships, language, main events happening in and affecting their life. Then, it is Literature that works as a helpful device for writers to express their thoughts, feelings, concept, hope 5 and dreams. Readers are recipients who get the messages signaled or coded in form of letters or speeches. Without messages from writers, literary works are just stretch of mindless words and letters, which causes communication breakdown. Finally, literature serves as “a tool for struggle”. Writers may play the role of the representatives for humans, or more exactly, human needs, wants and rights. They may contribute their works to making a better life by debating and fighting for the poor’s rights, appealing for mutual sharing, agreeing with the rights and opposing the wrongs. Especially in times of wars or depression, writers may become soldiers with their works as powerful weapons. All those features above are just striking ones which contribute to values of literal works. Actually, they are combined together with other “materials” to form a complete set and sometimes it is hard and confusing to clarify into discrete parts. 2. Theory on Humanism 2.1. What is Humanism? Like literature, there are a number of meanings of the term “humanism” debated by theorists, humanists, writers and scientists. Authors and speakers may not use the word with lack of absolute clarity. In the speech What is Humanism (1989), Fred Edwords, an American humanist, tried to give the most concise definitions of Humanism, which can help writers to avoid confusion. In his work, Fred Edwords divided Humanism into many branches but in this graduation paper, Literary Humanism and Secular Humanism are focused on due to their suitability with the three literary works The last leaf, The skylight room and The gift of the magi written by O. Henry in the period from the late 19 th century to the early 20 th century. 6 [...]... symbol, icon, model and detail in his stories Notably, “space of a closed room” made an obsession in O Henry s stories It reminded of poor people’s life in American society and O Henry s difficult time in poverty and prison O Henry is like a master and a witch of telling stories His stories have a closely connected plot but have a tendency to end surprisingly A twist of plot turns on an ironic or coincidental... speed Once more, O Henry let his characters express their thoughts about William Jackson’s behaviours to Leeson as if “his face was that of one who bears his own dead” His expressions and actions could leave an impression of a good doctor on readers Let’s move to another corner of Washington D.C where there were three poor artists who leaned on each other: Sue, Johnsy and old Behrman They came from different... Leeson was not intended for a sky-light room when the plans were drawn for her creation” Without a shadow of doubt, she was an angel or a fairy who unluckily got lost and caught in the skylight room Living in the poor and miserable neighborhood, she did not lose her good nature but shone and covered her light on others Appearing in that place, Leeson brought about big changes to other tenants Her stories... gap among classes Workers’ wages were very low Labor unions were created to protect workers Meanwhile, farmers also faced hard times as technology and increasing production led to more competitions and falling prices for farm products Hard times on farms forced many young people to move to the city in search of better job opportunities On the other hand, the high and middle classes owned most of the... not waste many words to describe apart from an irony joke that the owners of the room should have had a lookout for the mendicancy squad The relation was used to emphatically assert that the Dillinghams lived like beggars Then, move to Ms Lesson’s skylight room She lived in a room which “occupied 7x8 feet of floor space at the middle of the hall On each side of it was a dark lumber closet or storeroom”... a ladder to paint an ivy leaf on the brick wall when the last leaf fell down, which led to his death of pneumonia Thanks to Berman's sacrifice, Johnsy could recover and continued her dream The skylight room was published in 1906 in The four million It is about Leeson, a poor intellectual, wanted to look for a low-rent room With her low salary, she just could rent a cheap room on the top floor, which... drifting lives Most of the rooms in O Henry s stories lay on the rooftop The higher their rooms became, the poorer the tenants were The higher their rooms reached, the more isolated the tenants were from the surrounding world Their friends, their sources of encouragements might be a blue star in the far away sky (The Skylight room) or a posture of an un-known person (An unfinished story) There were... last one fall I'm tired of waiting I'm tired of thinking I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves”, what a total nonsense she uttered As her doctor said, had it not been for her weakness, she could have had a one-in-five chance, instead of one-in-ten Even with all of his efforts, he could not cure a patient who began to count the... throat, you gasped, you looked up as from a well and breathed once more Through the glass of the little skylight you saw a square of blue infinity” Like a coffin or the bottom of a dry well with no oxygen, it was too narrow to breathe Like a prison, it detained anything kept inside Had it not been for her poverty, how could a person live in a room which was pitch- dark, airless and dusty like that? Poor... leaf, looking out the windows with dull, wide-open eyes and taking to others in whispers She had only one chance in ten to recover from her illness Nevertheless, it was both miserable and blamable of Johnsy as she almost gave up all her hope and entrusted her life to ivy leaves on a brick wall which was opposite to the windows of her room “When the last one falls I must go, too […] I want to see the . is about Leeson, a poor intellectual, wanted to look for a low-rent room. With her low salary, she just could rent a cheap room on the top floor, which was called the skylight room. Though. symbol, icon, model and detail in his stories. Notably, “space of a closed room” made an obsession in O. Henry s stories. It reminded of poor people’s life in American society and O. Henry s. this period depicted the damage of economic forces as a result of urbanization, industrialization, poor and overcrowded housing, unsanitary conditions, low pay and difficult work conditions. They