Abstract

O. Henry is an outstanding short story writer of American in the early 19th century. His works are full of humor and grief, satire and anger. They enjoy great honour and achievements, having a strikingly permanent impact on world literature. The Cop and the Anthem is one of his masterpiece. It consists of six parts, each of them dealing with Soapy’s misconduct, and a surprising ending. This thesis will analyse black humor from three aspects to show how the works bring people laughters and tears.
First, from the perspective of plot, the thesis explores black humor from the hero’s sufferings, struggles and his fate after doing a series of ridiculous things. Then, characters will be studied, Soapy, the policemen, the young man and woman, from what they look like, what they say, what they think and what they do to further analyze black humor. Finally, settings will be presented to concretize what the society of that era takes on.
From the above studies, we can better appreciate the work and O. Henry’s writing techniques.

Key Words: black humor  laughter  tear  irony  absurdity

摘 要

欧亨利是19世纪美国著名的短篇小说家。作品大多语言诙谐幽默，情节构思奇特新颖，充满讽刺但却无比哀伤，欧亨利式结尾也为人所熟知。他的作品享誉世界，对世界文坛有着惊人持久的影响力。
警察与赞美诗是欧亨利一部很有代表性的杰作。它描写了流浪汉苏比为入狱而做的一系列有趣滑稽的事，最后正当他想改过自新，好好做人的时候，却被警察以莫名其妙的理由被捕入狱。在这部短篇小说中，作者用幽默讽刺的语言和荒诞不合常理的情节展示了当时资本主义社会的腐败，小人物无可奈何的辛酸和悲凉。
黑色幽默是20世纪60年代美国重要的文学流派，通过描写一些病态、畸形的人物形象来揭露现实世界的荒谬与丑恶，用喜剧形式来表现悲剧内容的文学形式。本文从小说的三要素，情节、人物与场景来分析《警察与赞美诗》所蕴含的黑色幽默。

关键词：黑色幽默 笑声 泪水 讽刺 荒诞

1 Introduction
Every work well reflects different themes for different periods. The Cop and the Anthem written by O. Henry reflects what life is about in the early 20th century in America. Before studying black humor in the novel, the present author gives introduction to the significance of the study and the orgnization of the whole thesis.