鲁迅与马克吐温作品中
讽刺手法比较
文 / 周战军
I. Purpose of the thesis
Both Lu Xun and Mark Twain are masters of satire
and contribute a lot to Chinese and American literature
respectively. They had great influence upon writers after
them, especially for their writing vehicles—satire. So far
many researchers have become increasingly interested
in Lu Xun’s satire or Mark Twain’s satire. However, few
studies have made on the comparison of Lu Xun’s satire
and Mark Twain’s satire. This is one of the reasons why I’m
interested in this topic. For other reasons, they had a large
number of similarities: Lu Xun was the penname of Zhou
Shuren; Mark Twain, pseudonym of Samuel Clemens. The
life span of the two writers covered nearly the same age,
Lu Xun was born in 1881, and died in 1936; while Mark
Twain lived from 1835 to 1910. Meanwhile, Lu Xun was
the founder of modern Baihua; while Mark Twain played a
very important role in spreading American Colloquialism.
Both Baihua and Colloquialism are milestones in literature.
The most important reason why I’d like writing this is that I
appreciate Lu Xun and Mark Twain’s prominent satire.
Some experts had analyzed Mark Twain’s satire, they
pointed out that Mark Twain mixed humor with satire.
Some scholars even argued that Mark Twain’s writing
style was transferred from humor to satire. Still, other
studies have shown that Lu Xun described the psychology
and performance of characters to criticize the unawake
people. In this thesis, I want to make a comparison on Lu
Xun’s satire and Mark Twain’s satire, to have a preliminary
study on the style of their satire. In order to finish this job,
some books are helpful, such as Lu Xun’s Kong Yiji, The
True Story of Ah Q, The Medicine, Mark Twain’s The
Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras Country, The Man
That Corrupted Hadleyburg. Meanwhile, some writer’s
views about Lu Xun and Mark Twain’s satire are also
very important, such as Li Chuanpen, his article “On Lu
Xun’s satire” argues that Lu Xun made full use of people’s
appearance, psychology and action to criticize people’s
apathy. [1] He gives us an example―Kong Yiji’s words and
2011 年二月刊
clothings. Ye Mang, “On the Satire of Lun Xun’s Novel”,
published in June 15th 2007, points out in The True Story
of Ah Q, Lu Xun used Ah Q’s view to satirize the people’s
indifference. Wei Desan, “On the Satire of Mark Twain”
argues that Mark Twain made full use of the arrangement
of the plots and humorous words to criticize the evil. [2]
He Dongyan, “On Mark Twain’s Humor” points out Mark
Twain mixed humor and satire to satirize the injustice. [3]
The purpose of this paper is to make a comparison
on Lu Xun’s and Mark Twain’s satire, to find out the
differences and similarities of their satire. This paper falls
into 3 sections: section one is to tell the purpose of this
writing; section two is about the comparison on the style
of their satire; section three is a conclusion that there are
similarities and differences between Lu Xun and Mark
Twain’s satire.
II. Style of Satire
i. The style of Lu Xun’s satire
For the styles of satire of Lu Xun and Mark Twain,
we should be familiar with two key styles, one is direct,
and the other is roundabout or indirect. Lu Xun belonged to
the former, while, Mark Twain the latter. We couldn’t say
which one is better or which is worse. The only conclusion
we can make is that Lu Xun and Mark Twain’s styles of
satire are different. The direct style of satire criticizes things
and persons very seriously, with no space left. But, the
roundabout style of satire leaves some space for the reader.
The difference between direct and indirect styles is just two
kinds of speech, direct speech or indirect speech. We’ll take
several of their books as examples. Lu Xun’s Kong Yiji
and Medicine exposed the ugliness and darkness of human
nature. Lu Xun said, “Kong Yiji is the only person who
wears a long gown but stands there drinking”. From this,
we can say Kong Yiji has not enough money; otherwise he
would not stand there. But in order to show his arrogance,
he wears long gown, which is the symbol of wealth and
position. Directly speaking, Kong Yiji is a bookworm. Lu
Xun satirizes Kong Yiji’s hypocrisy in a direct way. Kong
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Yiji pretends to be a wealthy man, also a knowledgeable
person. He has several ridiculous proposals, such as
“Stealing books doesn’t make you a thief.” For every one of
us, when we first heard this, we would burst into laughing.
But after laughing, we have a kind of feeling to appreciate
Lu Xun’s direct satire. Lu Xun criticized Kong Yiji’s
arrogance. We know stealing books is an action of theft, but
Kong Yiji refuses to acknowledge this. Then a vivid picture
appears in everyone’s mind. We can also find examples
in Xun’s Medicine: The story is to criticize the peasant’s
apathetic and unconsciousness in a direct way.
ii. The style of Mark Twain’s satire
For Mark Twain, his style of satire is a little different
from Luxun’s. He adopted the roundabout way, or in other
words, the indirect way. Mark Twain criticized people and
things in an indirect way. This kind of satire creates an effect
of humor. According to some experts, this is the reason why
Twain was called a humorist. Several years ago, there was a
debate on whether Mark Twain is a humorist or a master of
satire. As far as I’m concerned, we should know the aim and
the influence of Mark Twain’s humor, it is also to criticize
the injustice. In other words, we can say that Mark Twain
is a master of satire in an indirect way. Examples are as the
followings: Mark Twain satirizes people’s dishonesty in The
Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg. In the past, Haleyburg
was famous for its honesty. But in the end, everybody in
the town lies in order to get a big bag of gold. Twain speaks
highly of the town, for its honesty, for its unity, for the
people there. People around there are very proud for their
pure character. In order to prove that they pretend to be
pure, Twain first says they are honest, not criticized them.
As times goes on, a stranger with a bag of gold comes to
this town. After that, everything is changed, people’s mask
is falling off, people’s greed is exposed to readers. Twain
satirizes the corrupted Hadleyburg in a roundabout way,
with the hidden meaning that money is the evil of society.
We can find more examples in The Notorious Jumping Frog
of Calaveras Country. Twain satirizes this phenomenon, but
in an indirect way. Just as some critics said that “Twain was
dancing with a mask”. Mark Twain would not show his real
intention at first; he would show it in a roundabout way. So
readers must read the books carefully.
III. Conclusion
From the above analysis, we can obtain a conclusion
that there are similarities and differences between Lu
Xun and Mark Twain’s satire. For the similarities, both
Lu Xun and Mark Twain wanted to use the satire to wake
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up people’s minds, people’s awareness, to criticize the
corrupted governments, to satirize the greedy people. Also,
Mark Twain criticizes the church and traditional family
rules. Their satire is just like a monument to Chinese
literature and American literature. Their satires to today’s
authors are still valuable; many writers benefit a lot from
their satire. So, at present there are many institutes and
scholars devoting to the study of Lu Xun and Mark Twain.
For the differences, we know, Lu Xun tended to use the
direct satire; while, Mark Twain preferred to satire in a
roundabout way. Direct satire is like a sharp tool, it can
touch the essence of things. Roundabout way satire has
a mask, and sometimes has the effect of humor. So Mark
Twain’s humor can be also regarded as satire in another
aspect. Lu Xun was the founder of Modern Baihua; Mark
Twain was famous for his colloquial English. Baihua and
colloquialism, as we said before, are turning points in
world literature. Therefore the popularity of Baihua and
colloquialism is obvious. Lu Xun’s satire and Mark Twain’s
satire still has left much space for us to research on and I
will concentrate more on that later on.
Notes
[1] 李 传 鹏“ 论 鲁 迅 讽 刺 艺 术” 山 东 平 邑 兴 蒙 学 校 . http://
tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=16102344.
[2] 韦德三“评马克·吐温讽刺艺术” 广西大学学报 ,No.22(2000)
P35.
[3] 何 东 燕“ 马 克· 吐 温 小 说 的 幽 默 艺 术” 培 凌 师 范 学 报，
No.3(2002): P15-17.
Bibliography
[1]Mark Twain. The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras
Country. http://www.douban.com/group/topic/1070689/
[2]Mark Twain. The Gilded Age. http://www.books-by-isbn.com/
authors/mark/twain/
[3] 程光炜主编 《中国现代文学史》 [M]. 北京 : 中国人民大学出
社 ,2002
[4] 何东燕 “马克·吐温小说的幽默艺术”[J]. 培凌师范学报 .2002
年 03 期
[5] 胡荫桐主编 . 《美国文学新编》 [M]. 北京 : 外语教学与研究
出版社 ,2006
[6] 李传鹏 “论鲁迅讽刺艺术”[J]. 山东平邑兴蒙学校 . http://
tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=16102344
[7] 鲁迅 《鲁迅小说名篇》 [M]. 长春 : 时代文艺出版社 ,2003
[8] 马克·吐温《马克·吐温中短篇小说集》 [M]. 长春 : 吉林摄
影出版社 ,2004
（周战军：黄河科技学院外语学院教师，助教，在读硕士，研究方向：
英国文学，中英诗歌。）
2011 年二月刊