从《康州美国佬在亚瑟王朝》看马克•吐温的幽默讽刺艺术(4)
But perhaps the worst of all was, that there wasn’t any sugar, coffee, tea, or tobacco. I saw that I was just another Robinson Crusoe cast away on an inhabited island, with no society but some more or less tame animals. (46)
Through first person narrator, readers are restricted to Hank’s attitude towards other characters and to the events in which he is involved, so they have illusively become Hank himself to explore in person in the fantastic 6th century Britain, watching humorous events happening one after another in front of their eyes and experiencing “authentic” humor when reading.
2.1.2 The Intensity of Satire: The Use of Caricatural Exaggeration
Twain also gives full play to the use of exaggeration in A Connecticut Yankee in which very absurd scenes are described. Twain’s exaggeration is caricature alike as a perfect caricature must exaggerate the character’s feature from head to tiptoe. Many characters’ behaviour is exaggerated intentionally to emphasize the intensity of satire behind the comic surface. In Chapter IV, the hyperbolic reaction of the audience after Sir Dinadan tells a practical joke about dogs is well depicted that “every man and woman of the multitude [laugh] till the tears [flow], and some [fall] out of their chairs and [wallow] on the floor in ecstasy”(28). But this joke isn’t funny at all in Hank’s eyes as he thinks that he had never heard so many old played out jokes strung together in his life. Such exaggeration of the scene actually reveals the superficiality and vapidity of the people in Arthurian England as they’re easily bewitched by rumors and scandals. Moreover, when the Yankee and the King travels in cognito, they are challenged by some knights who let their long lances droop to a level and come tearing for them like a lightening express. Then the scene is exaggerated again, as Twain writes:
When they were within fifteen yards, I sent that bomb with a sure aim and it struck the ground just under the horses’ nosesthe next fifteen minutes we stood under a steady drizzle of microscopic fragments of knights and hardware and horseflesh. (209)
The bloody scene of dead bodies after the explosion is exaggerated in a surreal caricatural way as “a steady drizzle of microscopic fragments”, which bears much satiric meaning in order to criticize the violent power of modern weapons and the merciless dark side of human heart.
In addition, when the Yankee and the King are going to be hanged as slaves before the public, Hank notices Lancelot and the knights coming to the rescue, the spectacle of which is quite dramatic and interesting:
They were blindfolding [the King]I was paralyzedthen everything let go in me and I made a spring to the rescue—and as I made it I shot on more glance abroad—by George, here they came, atilting— five hundred mailed and belted knights on bicycles!. How the plumes streamed, how the sun flamed and flashed from the endless procession of webby wheels! (289-290)
This hyperbolic description of knights on bikes is like funny serial caricatures coming into readers’ eyes, making them laugh their hearts out and appreciate Twain’s humorous soul wholeheartedly. Twain himself also pays great attention to this writing technique for it will make his humor and satire more smart and appealing, the subject of his satire more grotesquerie, and in turn lift his humor and satire to a new high level (Bao Haiqing, 2009:33).
2.1.3 The Profundity of Humor and Satire: The Combination of Contrasts and Symbols
The most commonly used rhetorical device in A Connecticut Yankee are the ubiquitous contrasts, with the title itself an obvious epitome. Arthurian court in the 6th century is the epitome of ignorance, backwardness and superstition whereas the 19th century America where Hank lives is the epitome of civilization, democracy and science (Lin Wenhua, 2003:54). However, some contrasts in the novel, which also play a significant role in conveying Twain’s satiric tone, have often been ignored by many, so in the following paragraphs they will be illustrated respectively.
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