O.

Henry
O. Henry (1862-1910) was a prolific American
short-story writer, a master of surprise
endings, who wrote about the life of ordinary
people in New York City. A twist of plot, which
turns on an ironic or coincidental
circumstance, is typical of O. Henry's stories.
William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) was born in
Greensboro, North Carolina. His father,
Algernon Sidney Porter, was a physician.
When William was three, his mother died, and
he was raised by his paternal grandmother
and aunt.
Henry's first collection, Cabbages And Kings
appeared in 1904. The second, The Four
Million, was published two years later and
included his well-known stories "The Gift of
the Magi" and "The Furnished Room". The
Trimmed Lamp (1907) included "The Last
Leaf". Henry's best known work is perhaps the
much anthologized "The Ransom of Red
Chief", included in the collection Whirligigs
(1910). The Heart Of The West (1907)
presented tales of the Texas range. O. Henry
published 10 collections and over 600 short
stories during his lifetime.

The summary of the story
- This is a story about a
young mans search for
his sweetheart in a large
city and his subsequent
suicide after not being
able to find her. He dies
without ever knowing
that his sweetheart had
also committed suicide in
the same room only a
week earlier.

Plot structure

Setting
- Place: The story take
place in New York City,
West Side in a
Furnished Room;
- Time: In one evening;

Rising action




Climax
- The young man asks the housekeeper
about his sweetheart, but gets a
negative reply. Dejected, he kills
himself with the gas from the lamp.



It includes the following
moments:
- When the young asks the
housekeeper about the
woman who he seeks;
- Then he searches through
drawers and pokes into
every corner of the room
looking for something that
remains of this woman.


- When the two housekeepers
talking about the girl, whom the
young man was searching for, who
died in the room.

Conflict
Internal conflict:
- The young man struggles with himself. A
long time he seeks but he is not able to find
his sweetheart. She represents his life and
without her he cant exist.
External conflict:
- The young man struggles with bleak,
indifferent world which misunderstand him.
Characters
The main character is the
young man who came in
New York City and all days
and nights during 5 moths he
sought his sweetheart whom he
loved very much. He is
characterized as a lonely,
isolated, sad and week person.
The minor character of the
story is Mrs. Purdy who is a
housekeeper. She is
characterized as a greedy,
indifferent and helpless
woman. She knew the girl
whom the young man
searching for but she didnt
said him because she was
afraid to lose him as a lodger.

The title
The title of the story is denotative because
suggests the direct meaning. At the same
time it is symbolic one, the poor condition of
the room represents the cruelty of the
people in general a glow of pseudo
hospitality, a hectic, haggard, perfunctory
welcome like the specious smile of a
demirep.
The Themes
- The author touched upon many themes in this
story such as: Loneliness, Lost Love,
Transience and of course Suicide.
- I think that the main of it is The struggles and
uncertainties that young people face in search
of self and identity.
The Idea



The Message
Without any help,
supporting, care,
understanding, love we
cant exist.

The idea is that we
remain transient
forever, transient in
abode, transient in
heart and mind
always searching
for something to
fulfill us or make us
complete
Epithets: red brick; foul and tainted air; nice room; a fair girl;
reddish gold hair; horrible monster; rich odor.
Metaphors: a single buffet of wind; divination of dreams.
Similes: it was like a monstrous quicksand; a polychromic rug like
some brilliant-fowered, rectangular, tropical isled; he traversed the
room like a hound on the scent.
Enumeration: a fair girl, of medium height and slender, with
reddish gold hair and dark mole near her left eyebrow.
Polysydenton: he burrowed in crevices and corners, and found
corks and cigarettes.
Conclusion
This story is perhaps the bleakest of O.
Henrys best-known stories. Although the
fact that the young man ends up in the very
same room in which his lost sweetheart took
her life is one of the most extreme
coincidences in all of O. Henry's fiction, the
power of the atmosphere of the story is so
strong that readers are willing to accept it.