to the world outstanding short stories.
As a master of short stories, he possesses unique techniques and styles. These short stories are characterized by vivid characters, humorous language, surprise endings, frequent coincidences, and themes of humanity. All of these make him affecting profoundly to the arena of the world literature, has the transient function in the development of American short stories.
His stories are full of colorful characters, most of which are derived from his inclination to wander streets and parks, and to talk to people of every kind and condition. All of them are ingeniously conceived, with the ending always contrary to readers’ expectations. Being gifted with humor and a keen awareness of details, he objectively shows us what America looks like, as someone said, “The encyclopedia of American life”.
1.3 Humor and the Functions of Humor
Humor is a kind of cultural essences of a nation. Thousands of years ago, people research and study on it all the time. There are many definitions of humor, because it is a mystery. Let’s have a look at the following definitions:
“Humor is the tendency of particular cognitive experiences to provoke laughter and provide amusement.” (Wikipedia)
“Humor is an enigma we don’t know of any culture where people do not have a sense of humor…There is no aspect of our lives that is not open to humor…And yet, curious enough, humor has remained a puzzle to he beat minds we have produced.
-－ A. A. Berger, 1987.
“It is ironic that we are daily exposed to humor, and the world’s literature abounds with example, yet humor eludes precise definition.”
－F. J. MacHovec, 1988. (A Brief Survey of Studies of Humor, 2008)
Humor’s original intention is to belittle to oneself, the biggest enemy is the conceit. Its purpose is to have the ability laughing at oneself, laugh at his mistakes, his failure, his embarrassment, even his ideal. Funny humor can stretch the nerves which under the various pressures; ironic humor can point out the ridiculous things in the life and express them technically, warn the shortcomings in the world; witty humor can shorten the distance between the humans, promote the affinity in the association. Generally, humor has five functions which contribute a lot to the motivating process.
Physical function, it is obvious that humor can make people laugh, stimulate the circulatory systems, and promote muscular movement. A famous Chinese saying “Laughter makes one ten years younger” provides good evidence for recognition of the biological and medical values of humor in ancient china (sina.com.cn/flying7s).
Psychologica
