Abstract
 
Black humor is a kind of literary device which was first used in western literature and later has been widely exploited in the world. Many writers use black humor to express their ideas in numerous literary works through history. Black humor is different from traditional humor. Black humor uses various devices to associate humor with tragedy, and there are deep sorrow and despair behind black humor. Black humor can be seen in O. Henry’s novels. One of his most well-known works is The Cop and the Anthem. On the basis of reviewing the theories of humor and black humor, this thesis mainly centers on analyzing black humor in The Cop and the Anthem from two aspects: characters and the social background. Through the analyses, the significance of black humor in The Cop and the Anthem can be clarified.

Key Words: humor  black humor  O. Henry  character  social background 

摘 要

    黑色幽默是一种文学创作手法，它首先出现于西方文学中，后来在全世界被广泛地运用。历史上许多作家在他们的文学作品中运用黑色幽默来表达他们的思想。黑色幽默与传统幽默不同，黑色幽默的各种创作手法经常把幽默和悲剧联系在一起，并且黑色幽默背后隐藏着深深的悲伤与绝望。欧亨利的小说中存在着黑色幽默，其中最著名的作品就是《警察与赞美诗》。在回顾幽默与黑色幽默理论的基础上，本文主要从两个方面重点分析《警察与赞美诗》中的黑色幽默：人物和社会背景。这些分析阐明了黑色幽默在《警察与赞美诗》中的重要意义。

关键词：幽默 黑色幽默 欧亨利 人物 社会背景

1 Introduction
O. Henry, whose real name is William Sydney Porter, is one of the most famous American short-story writers. It is known by many people that the endings of his works are often unexpected as well as surprising, and the twists of plots really impress the readers, hence the term “O. Henry Ending” becomes popular. His works are closely related to ordinary people in New York City, so he is also called “American life humor encyclopedia”. His short stories, such as The Gift of Magi, The Last Leaf, The Cop and the Anthem and so on, have far-reaching influence on world literature.
The Cop and the Anthem is a masterpiece of O. Henry’s short stories. Many scholars are engaged in the study of this short story. Ma Jun gives a valuable resource for studying the writing style of The Cop and the Anthem in his paper On O. Henry’s Writing Style: Exemplified by “The Cop and the Anthem”. Wang Junping explores the humor effect of The Cop and the Anthem in An Analysis of Humor Effect in The Cop and the Anthem from the Perspective of Interpersonal Functions. Zhang Xiaoxia analyses The Cop and the Anthem from the perspectives of pragmatics in his Analyzing The Cop and the Anthem from Pragmatic Presupposition Perspective. How to Understand SU Bi’s Image and His Significance—With a Talk about the Art of Humor in “Pop and Hymn”is a paper written by Zhang Shusheng.