Mark Twain, a distinguished American humorist, novelist and orator, was the representative of American literature realism。 He was lauded as the “greatest American humorist of his age” and was considered as “the Father of American Literature” by William Faulkner。 Twain’s writing rooted in the every aspect of the society and he probed into some deep social problems in his writings。 Famed for his wit as well as his humorous writing style, Mark Twain won praise and reputations from critics and his counterparts。 During his whole lifetime, Twain wrote 28 books and also published collections of short stories。 Mark Twain’s novels were characterized by humor, satire and usually the narrator as the first person singular perspective。 “The Californian’s Tale,” one of the novels by Twain which was firstly translated and introduced to China, due to its sentimental elements, is distinct from Twain’s other works。 It tells a story, under the backdrop of the destruction of the gold-rush dream, about an insane Californian who loses his beloved wife indulging in a trance and his mind freezing on that Saturday when his wife should have returned home。 In the short story, the first person singular point of view which is very common in Twain’s works, together with the flexible shifts of point of view, contributes a lot to the short story’s artistic and thematic effects。 文献综述

1。2 Research Approach

Both “The Californian’s Tale” and “The Gift of the Magi,” which feature the flexible shifts of point of view, are classical and renowned short stories。 The related research on narration has been very popular in the literary filed。 Under the premise of a thorough grasp of the two texts, this paper aims, with narrative theory as a foothold, to explore the shifts of point of view in the two short stories。 During the process of dissecting the shifts of point of view, the deep implications will be excavated, which allows readers to touch upon the social problems or ideology hidden in the short stories。