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摘 要

《麦琪的礼物》是美国短篇小说之父欧·亨利的重要的代表作之一。他的作品不仅有着幽默的表现手法和独特的艺术特色，他的叙事策略更有其独到之处。本文从《麦琪的礼物》的叙事角度及其转变、叙事速度的掌控、幽默简练的叙事语言以及小说的可读性和易读性这几个方面出发，浅析欧·亨利短篇小说的叙事策略，意在让读者从全新的角度来赏析欧·亨利的短篇小说。

关键词：欧·亨利；叙事策略；《麦琪的礼物》

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Narrative Strategy in “The Gift of the Magi” 3

3.1 The narrative point of view 3

3.2 The narrative speed 5

3.3 The narrative language 7

3.4 The balance between legibility and readability 9

4. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 11

1. Introduction

William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862- June 5, 1910), known as his pen name O. Henry, was a famous American writer. He lived in southern America when he was a child, and then he moved to western America when he grew up. His first wife’s encouragement made him began to write. He had bought a weekly journal and renamed it as The Rolling Stone (In other words, he created The Rolling Stone). However, the weekly journal failed at last. O. Henry was imprisoned for embezzlement from a bank in 1898. He worked full-time on his short stories for a living in prison. In his short stories, O. Henry portrayed different kinds of characters such as rich people, poor people, kind man, bad man and so on. There were also many descriptions of the lives of American middle and lower class people. Therefore, O. Henry’s short stories were called an encyclopedia of American lives.

O. Henry’s short stories could engender a feeling of freshness and a sense of poetic beauty. He was very good at catching the dramatic scenes of lives, describing characters with details, arranging reasonable plots and unexpected endings.

“The Gift of the Magi” is one of his very important works. It is a story about a young married couple who live in penury. Both of them want to buy a wonderful gift for each other when Christmas is coming, but they don’t have enough money. They get their ideal gifts at the expense of the possessions in which they take pride. The precious gifts become useless because of a strange combination of circumstances. However, they get love which is much more precious than any other things in the world.

O. Henry and his wife lived in sweet although they were very poorly off. Everything was unforgettable. However, he was not around his wife when she passed away which made O. Henry suffer deep pain from it. The guilty and pain promoted him to write “The Gift of the Magi” for her wife.

O. Henry uses his unique humorous language to narrate this sad story and makes the readers laugh with tears. At the same time, the readers can understand the philosophy of love and dedication which the author hides in the short story. This short story’s plots and its twist ending are very popular, but we will find its narrative strategy is also very outstanding.

2. Literature Review

The scholars have studied “The Gift of the Magi” from various aspects. Some scholars paid their attention to the structure of the story. In his book Going in a Maze, Ruan Wenling pointed out that O. Henry made the arrangement of the plot skillfully. The coincidence was clever, reasonable and believable and the thoughtful arrangement depended on the ingenious form of structure. Some others focused on O. Henry’s language and humor. In his article “A Brief Talk on the Artistic Feature of O. Henry’s Short Story”, Li Hong wrote that the art of O. Henry’s language was unique and he was very good at using rhetoric such as exaggeration, irony and so on to describe the characters and the plot. He also thought that the twist plot and the unexpected but reasonable ending made up the O. Henry-style ending. Zhang Lei and Gao Ruoteng thought that O. Henry’s special humor ran through the whole story and it made the readers “laugh with tears”. The characterization of the story also got enough attention. In “The Human Nature in O. Henry’s Short Story”, Li Yanyun and Ouyang Youzhen wrote that O. Henry was able to create characters who lived in the middle and lower level of the American society vividly because of his individual experience. He was good at observing life and ordinary people and expressing his own understanding and attitude of humanity and love in his short story. In his thesis “A Study of Metacognition on O. Henry’s ‘The Gift of the Magi’”, Lin Tai’an wrote “The study found that there were two levels for a same thing in O. Henry’s text. One level was an inner-layer story, and the other an external (outer)-layer story. They both constructed a particular twofold spatial for O. Henry’s fiction world.” (Lin Tai’an, 2010: 49)

O. Henry’s writing techniques are so extraordinary that the scholars paid too much attention to them. However, his narrative strategy is also very outstanding. This thesis will discuss the narrative strategy of O. Henry’s short story- “The Gift of the Magi” from the narrative point of view, the narrative speed, the narrative language and the balance between legibility and readability, aiming at providing a new angle for the readers to appreciate O. Henry’s works.

3. Narrative Strategy in “The Gift of the Magi”

“The Gift of the Magi” shows O. Henry’s remarkable narrative style and it is a typical work of him. He uses the transitions of narrative point of view and the speed of narration skillfully to build suspense and motivate the development of the plot. And his brief and humorous language makes this short story and the underlying philosophies of it much easier to understand.

3.1 The narrative point of view

Short story is a kind of narrative literary form as well as narrative art. Whether the narration is ingenious or not influences the artistic charm of the short story. Suspense is the vital element in the process of narration; it is not only the key to create the plot but also the key to touch the readers’ deep hearts. The creation of suspense depends much on the narrative point of view in a short story and the transition of the narrative point of view strengthens the artistic charm of it.

The narrative point of view is very important in the narrative literary form. Shen Dan believes that the narrative point of view is the angle to observe the story in the process of narration, and the narrator controls the angle of view. At the same time, the point of view is also a kind of narrative skill. Short story is sketchy and has little space and characters, so it is very important to choose an appropriate narrative point of view to create the impressive and attractive suspense in the limited space. And it may determine the short story is successful or not.

O. Henry creates a narrator to tell the story. For the most part, “The Gift of the Magi” uses the classical omniscient point of view. According to G. Genette, this kind of omniscient point of view which is not fixed belongs to narrative with zero focalization. It means that “the narrator knows more than the character, or more exactly says more than any of the characters knows.” (Genette, 1983: 189) Shen Dan compares it to the angle of the God in her book; it’s really an interesting and vivid metaphor. The omniscient point of view does not have a fixed location to observe, so it is easier and more convenient to observe the characters’ physical and psychological actions and scenes, etc. O. Henry uses the third-person omniscient point of view to describe the most part of scenes and psychologies in his short stories.

In “The Gift of the Magi”, he uses this point of view to describe the scene that Della counts her money with tears:

“Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas. There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So Della did it.” (Henry, 2010: 1)

Readers can easily know that the background and character of this story in the omniscient point of view. Della lived in penury and she needs money to buy a Christmas gift now. One dollar and eighty-seven cents was not a large amount of money but Della counted it three times. This scene makes readers feel the sadness, suffering and helplessness of Della’s deep heart. The narrator not only strengthens a tragic atmosphere but also arouses the readers’ interest through his brief narration in the omniscient point of view. Then the omniscient narrator continues to describe Della’s poor apartment:

“While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.” (Henry, 2010: 1)

On the one hand, the narrator makes the readers know Della’s predicament deeply through this description; on the other hand, it motivates the development of the plot and foreshadows for the latter suspense. Then the narrator describes Della’s beautiful hair which makes her feel very proud and Jim’s watch in the third-person omniscient point of view which is objective and convincing. The readers can know how precious the two things are from the narration and it also hides the foreshadowing for the reasonable development of plot and the twist ending quietly.

The next scenes are also narrated in the omniscient point of view, such as Della’s selling of her hair to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim and so on. The omniscient narrator can observe from any angle of view and narrate in any space just like the God; therefore, he can describe these scenes vividly and objectively and show them to the readers more clearly which touch these readers to their deep heart. He builds the suspense in the imagination of the readers and makes them want to seek the development urgently.

The omniscient point of view is very useful. However, the narrator doesn’t use it in the whole story because the readers may lose interest to this story if he shows everything to them directly. The narrator transforms his angle of view neatly and he also hides a part of information designedly, even some key plots of the development, to build suspense.

In “The Gift of the Magi”, the readers know nothing about this young couple’s families or their personal information. And the narrator only focuses on Della’s actions and feelings but ignores her husband Jim’s. He portrays Jim in the limited point of view and the readers know a little about him. Therefore, he describes the scene that Jim asks Della where her hair is gone detailedly:

“‘You"ve cut off your hair?’ asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

Jim looked about the room curiously.

‘You say your hair is gone?’ he said, with an air almost of idiocy.”(Henry, 2010: 4)

Jim asks Della repeatedly, which not only shows his shock but also makes the readers feel curious about that. When Della asks Jim to give her the watch, “instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled” (Henry 6). They may wonder why Jim reacts like that and what actually happens when the author narrates from Della’s angle of view. Della has the same question. When the story is coming to the end, there are more and more suspense and questions. However, the narrator still uses the limited point of view to continue his narration and the readers feel so stressful that they can’t help desiring to know the end or the reason. He builds the suspense and arouses the readers’ emotions successfully.

Actually, Jim sells his watch to buy the combs for Della and Della sells her beautiful hair to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim. The precious gifts become useless because of a strange combination of circumstances. When reading here, the readers have to admire the author’s ingenious arrangement and the unexpected but reasonable ending.

O. Henry uses the third-person omniscient point of view and transforms it to the limited angle skillfully, which builds the suspense and foreshadows the end successfully. It’s really amazing and admirable.

3.2 The narrative speed

“By ‘speed’ we mean the relationship between a temporal dimension and a spatial dimension (so many meters per second, so many seconds per meter): the speed of a narrative will be defined by the relationship between a duration (that of the story, measured in seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, and years) and a length (that of the text, measured in lines and in pages).” (Genette, 1983: 87)

O. Henry has a unique narrative strategy not only because he transforms the narrative focalization neatly but also because he can control of the narrative speed skillfully. Because of the limit of extent of short story, the narrator intensified the narrative emphasis by adjusting narrative speed.

“at any level of aesthetic elaboration at all, it is hard to imagine the existence of a narrative that would admit of no variation in speed—and even this banal observation is somewhat important: a narrative can do without anachronies, but not without anisochronies, or, if one prefers (as one probably does), effects of rhythm.” (Genette, 1983: 88)

In other words, it is doubtless that a narrative with unchanging speed does not exist. The narrator should reasonably adjust the speed of narration to make more effects of rhythm. If the author describes a longer period of time with shorter text, it is acceleration in narration; on the contrary, if he describes a shorter period of time with longer text, it is deceleration in narration. There are a lot of accelerations and decelerations in “The Gift of the Magi”, and they are very important.

In the first half of the short story, the author focuses on describing Della’s beautiful hair and Jim’s golden watch. It’s a kind of deceleration in some degree. He hints of the importance of the two things to the readers. It foreshadows suspense for the story and arouses the readers’ curiosity and expectation. And the author describes the scene when Della has the money to pick up gift for Jim with a simple sentence: “Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings.” (Henry, 2010: 3) He uses this metaphor to describe that time slips away so fast vividly and even the readers could feel Della’s happiness. It’s a kind of acceleration. The climax of the story is about this young couple’s precious things as expected. However, the end is unexpected. O. Henry only uses a few words to make clear the fact that Jim sells his golden watch to buy the combs. He never mentions any words about Jim’s actions before that. However, the readers could imagine Jim’s feeling and his deep love to Della. The author uses acceleration and deceleration in narration appropriately and sets a lot of suspense and foreshadowing carefully. It not only leads the readers into the interesting part of the short story, but also leaves enough space to imagine. They will finally realize his intentions and have to admire his fantastic conception.

3.3 The narrative language

The language of O. Henry’s short story is very simple and concise. As is mentioned in the introduction O. Henry was imprisoned for embezzlement from a bank and then he worked full-time on his short stories in prison. As a professional writer at that time, O. Henry wrote for a living. To a large extent he wrote short story for the purpose of publishing his article, because short story was easier to publish on the newspaper or the magazine. It required the author best to play his writing talent in limited space. Therefore, he uses paralipsis to build suspense. Shen Dan believes that paralipsis is a writing method which narrator hints some necessary information in purpose. It can strengthen the readability of this short story.

As everyone knows, the description of environment is very important in the narrative literary works. The simplification of O. Henry’s short story shows his unique creative talent and his courage of not drifting with the current. He simplifies the description of the environment in “The Gift of the Magi”, as well as the social background. The readers are not able to know the information of Della and Jim’s parents and families, what Jim’s job is and why Della doesn’t go out to look for a job and so on. “A furnished flat at $8 per week. In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring.” (Henry, 2010: 1) All the readers could know is that they live in penury and it seems that this young couple seldom contact with others. The author mentions the environment and social background with simple words for simplifying the description. It can arouse the readers’ interest in some degree.

The simplification of the plot and the use of “narrative ellipsis” is one of the narrative art features in general novels. However, O. Henry simplifies the important developments of the plot in “The Gift of the Magi”, and leaves a lot of artistic blank. The author describes the scene after Della goes back to the apartment. For example, he writes “She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love” (Henry, 2010: 3), her saying to herself and so on. In fact, he leaves a lot of narrative blank. The scene that Jim comes back home and Della gives him the gift but finds that Jim sells his golden watch to buy combs for her should be the climax of the short story. However, he just uses a few words to describe him and he hides one piece of the key information that how Jim prepares gift for Della and what is his feeling is. The readers may pay no attention to the key information when they read here, but the author foreshadows this information for the ending of the story.

O. Henry usually simplifies his end of short story, too. The simplified end just doesn’t stack up. A short and sharp end may leave a lot of space of imagination to the readers. At the end of “The Gift of the Magi”, the author just uses few words to tell the fact that Jim sell his golden watch to buy combs for Della, but it is not difficult for the readers to imagine Jim’s sadness when he sells his golden watch which has been his father’s and grandfather’s. The readers could feel Jim’s sadness and his deep love to Della profoundly just because of the simplification of this part and they are led up to meaningful afterthoughts.

Nevertheless, if the author simplifies plots inappropriately, it would become boring and the readers would lose their interest. Fortunately, O. Henry has his own style of humor. His narrative language is very humorous and easy to understand. For example, the author describes this young couple’s precious possessions with exaggeration:

“Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty"s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.” (Henry, 2010: 2)

This kind of humor and exaggeration is not meaningless. There are some deep meanings hinted in it. When readers read here, they may not only laugh out loudly because it’s too exaggerated, but also realize that the Della’s hair and Jim’s golden watch are really very important to them. They may be curious about what would happen on these two things then.

The language of O. Henry’s short story is not only simple and concise but also humorous and exaggerated. It makes the readers laugh and interested in the story but don’t feel it is too long to read.

3.4 The balance between legibility and readability

“We often characterize a (narrative) text in terms of its readability: we say that it is highly readable, or barely readable, or practically un readable, and we usually mean that it is more or less easy to decipher and make sense of and that it is more or less interesting and pleasing.” (Prince, 1982: 132) O .Henry’s short story is readable because whoever the readers are, they could get inspiration from it more or less. It’s difficult to find rarely used words or professional language in his short story. They are very easy to understand and the author prefers to use simple and concise words to narrate. It strengthens the legibility of them.

However, “a text may be so legible that it becomes unreadable. Too much homogeneity, too much redundancy too much explicitness may result in a lack of interest and a lack of pleasure.” (Prince, 1982: 142) To avoid this situation, O. Henry does not tell everything to the readers directly in “The Gift of the Magi”. He sets a lot of suspense and foreshadowing for the development of the plot and the climax of the story which make his short story easy to understand but full of fun.

To those readers who have a little learning, they could find the same thing in their real life from “The Gift of the Magi” that they realize the hardship to work for a living and the love is powerful. They may laugh with tears for the unexpected but reasonable ending. To those who are knowledgeable, they could find the social situations at O. Henry’s time and the hinted philosophy from it. They could imagine the awkward situations of American middle and lower class people who lived in the 19th century. They may find that the author writes this story for his dead wife which could express his guilty to her.

The unique narrative talent of O. Henry is that he controls the balance of the readability and legibility well. “Narrative where there is very little action and very little change, where most of what is given remains given, where there are few surprises, few mysteries and few problematic passages can become tedious very quickly.” (Prince, 1982: 142) He uses simple words to describe the scene and characters which make this story easy to understand. The readers can find Della is a kind and virtuous wife when they read between lines. However, they almost know nothing about her husband which makes him mysterious. This contrast arouses the readers’ curiosity and interest to continue to read this story.

4. Conclusion

In conclusion, O. Henry shows his extraordinary narrative talent in “The Gift of the Magi”. He creates a narrator who has the angle of the God. He motivates the development of the plot with the help of omniscient point of view. At the same time, his selective description arouses the readers’ interest and creates a kind of mysterious atmosphere which helps to build suspense. Then, he sometimes transforms to the limited point of view to strengthen the sense of suspense and drama. It foreshadows for the twist ending. He also uses accelerations and decelerations to control the rhythm of the development of plot. His simple and concise narrative language makes the plot avoid being long and drawn out. He simplifies the end of “The Gift of the Magi”, which leaves a lot of space to imagine for the readers. His humorous and exaggerative language attracts readers to continue to read his short story. O. Henry also has a talent to keep an appropriate balance between the readability and legibility of the story. It is easy to understand but full of suspense and fun. All of these are worth exploring and learning.

There was a wealth of literary masters in the United States during the 19^th century. That O. Henry’s works became popular in the term of short story was an amazing achievement which could not be separated from his extraordinary writing talent. People paid too much attention to his artistic writing style, humor, irony and twist ending instead of his unique narrative strategy for a very long time. “The Gift of the Magi” is one of his best works. It’s just a story about small fries with usual writing materials. However, O. Henry creates a very moving short story with his skillful and outstanding narrative strategy. Therefore, when we read his short story and sigh for those characters’ sad or happy, ridiculous or pitiful fates, we should learn this literary master’s unique and inconspicuous narrative strategy at the same time.

Works Cited

Genette, Gerard. Narrative Discourse: An Essay in Method. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1983.

Henry, O. A Short Story Collection of O. Henry. Shanghai: Sanlian Publishing Company, 2010.

Lin, Tai’an. “A Study of Metacognition on O. Henry’s ‘The Gift of the Magi’”. Asian Social Science 4 (2010): 49-54.

Prince, Gerald. Narratology: The Form and Functioning of Narrative. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1982.

黄倩. 《欧·亨利短篇小说的叙事策略分析》. 作家杂志，12（2013）：78-79.

李鸿. 《浅谈欧·亨利短篇小说的艺术特色》. 时代文学, 06(2006)：87-88.

李艳云，欧阳友珍. 《欧·亨利小说中的人性意识》. 江西社会科学，06（2003）：63-65.

阮温凌. 《走进迷宫-欧·亨利的艺术世界》. 北京：中国社会科学出版社，1997.

申丹. 《叙述学与小说文体学研究》. 北京：北京大学出版社，2001.

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