AbstractO. Henry is one of the most famous writers in the early 20th century, enjoys equal status with Chekhov and Maupassant. Regarded as the founder of American modern stories, he played an important role in American literature. O. Henrys stories are famous for their surprise endings; such an ending is often referred to as an O. Henry ending. Most of O. Henrys stories are set in his own time, the early years of the 20th century. Many take place in New York City and deal for the most part with ordinary people. As a keen observer of American social life, He is good at digging out the inner human nature from common life in the lower class and makes readers think deeply about good and evil in the common life. Humanity became the dominated theme in his short stories. This thesis mainly analysis the humanity of characters revealed in O. Henrys short stories by analyzing the representative stories selected from his works. It will mainly include three parts: the praise of human virtue; the criticism of human weakness; the cause analysis about the humanity theme. I use two major research strategies: literature search and case studies. Data have been collected from archives, periodicals, and published books, through case analysis to carry my points.This thesis will give people a better understanding about O. Henrys works and his attitude towards humanity.Key Words：O. Henry; short stories; humanity 摘要欧亨利是20世纪最著名的作家之一，和莫泊桑、契诃夫其名，称为世界三位短篇小说巨匠。欧亨利被称为美国现代小说的奠基人，在美国文学中扮演着重要的角色。欧亨利的短篇小说以出其不意的结尾而享誉世界文坛，通常被称为“欧亨利式结尾”。欧亨利的作品大多以20世纪的美国社会为背景，描写小人物的喜怒哀乐。他善于从小人物的生活中挖掘人物内心的性格特征，让读者对人性的真善美和人性的丑陋有了更深的了解，人性是其小说中永恒的主题。这篇论文主要从三个方面探讨和分析欧亨利短篇小说中的人性意识。即对人性美德的赞美,对人性弱点的批判以及其短篇小说以人性作为主题的根源。我主要采用了两种研究策略：文献查找和案例分析。通过查找相关的文献和期刊阅读，以及对欧亨利具有代表性的短篇小说的分析来达到论文写作的目的。通过此论文，人们会对欧亨利的小说有更深刻的理解，更重要的是对人性有一个更深层次的感悟。关键词：欧亨利； 短篇小说；人性On Humanity in O. Henrys Short Stories1. IntroductionO. Henry is one of the greatest American short story writers in the 20th century, enjoys equal status with Chekhov and Maupassant, and he is regarded as “the founder of American modern short stories”. Many people think that O. Henry is famous for his unique endings, which is known as the “O. Henry-style ending”. Actually, the charm of his works also lies in the humanity theme, which revealed in his short stories. The critic William Peden once said, “O. Henry brought verve, excitement, and humor to the genre. Enormously interested in people, he is capable of swift and compassionate insights into the average person, and his sympathy for the underdog, the little man or woman dwarfed in the maze of contemporary life, to a degree accounted for his enormous popularity”. (Jim Kamp, 1994) In O. Henrys works, he presents the panorama of the American people to readers through depicting the life of ordinary people of his own time. O. Henry has a deep insight into human destiny and human nature; he observes the world from his own point of view on the basis of his personal experience. He praises the beauty of human nature on one hand, and criticizes the darkness of the capitalists on the other hand. Thus, humanity proves to be the eternal theme in his stories.This thesis is set out to analyze humanity in O. Henrys short stories from two aspects: glorify human virtues and criticize human weaknesses. Through these two points we will have a better understanding about O. Henrys works and his clear attitudes towards humanity.2. O. Henrys life and literary careerO. Henry was the pen name of the American short story writer William Sydney Porter, who was born in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1862. His father, Algernon Sidney Porter, was a physician. When William was three, his mother died, and he was raised by his aunt. William was very interested in reading, but at the age of fifteen, he went to work in an uncles drugstore. In 1882, he went to Texas, where he first worked as a druggist, later as a draftsman and finally as a teller in the First National Bank. He married in 1887 and his wife gave birth to a daughter in 1889.In 1894, Porter founded The Rolling Stone, a comic weekly magazine. In that year, he was charged with embezzlement when Porter worked as a bank teller in the First National Bank. In order to avoid the trial, Porter fled to Honduras .In 1897, after hearing of his wifes serious illness, Henry returned to Austin. His wife died that year, and in March of 1898 he was sentenced to five years in the federal penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio. While in prison, Porter started to write short stories to earn money to support his daughter Margaret, and he began to use O. Henry as his pseudonyms. After his release, he went to New York City, where he worked as a journalist. In 1907, O. Henry remarried, but the marriage was not happy, and they separated a year later. In his last years, O. Henry was addicted to alcoholism, suffered from ill health, and financial problems. He died of tuberculosis, complicated by alcoholism and diabe