Post on 17-Jul-2020
transcript
CHAPTER - III
Chapter III
O. HENRY
O. Henry ( 1862-1910) whose real name was William
Sydney Porter, was one of the most widely read American writers
during the first decade of the 20th. century, and continues to find
followers at home and abroad.He is a master alike of tragedy,
romance and extravaganza, of tales of the mystery of common
life, with a special skill in stories of the supernatural. His
first book Cabbages and the Kings appeared in 1904 — that
was the first year of 0. Henry’s contract with the New York Sunday
World Magazine, and his second book The four Million (1906,)
was a collection of twenty five stories with which he established
himself as a writer. The third volume The Triumph Lamp (1907),
contained some of his best stories of New York. In the same
year was published Heart of the West — a collection of stories
based on his experiences in Texas, which became popular
because of the entertainment they provided and also because
they faithfully reflected a permanent picture of the times they
delineate.
O. Henry grew up in Greensboro North Carolina. In Texas,
where he went in 1882 for reasons of health and to seek his fortune,
he lived for a time on a ranch, was a bank teller in Austin, edited
a short-lived humorous weekly called the Rolling Stone, and
wrote a daily column, filled mostly with humourous anecdotes,
for a Houston newspaper. Indicted for the alleged embezzlement
of funds from the bank that had employed him, he maintained
his innocence but fled to Honduras instead of standing trial. On
his return he was convicted, and during his three-year
imprisonment in the federal penitentiary in Columbus, Ohio, he
began to write and sell stories to the magazines. Soon after his
release he settled in New York city. His generation of short-story
writers, largely newspaper trained, included Ambrose Bierce,
Richard Harding Davis, Stephen Crane and Jack London, all
producing matter for the moment, but at times combining
imagination with experience to make literature. The short story
dominated the fiction of that period, but a short story that had
radically changed. For the new reading public, romance was in
order, but romance set against a realistic background and
depicting realistic characters. This was what the man who read
the supplement on Sunday afternoon wanted. And sensing the
new market and already trained in telling a story, O. Henry entered
the field to sell his wares. He wrote stories about Westerners,
Southerners and Latin Americans.
He caught the flavour of New York — the city and its cultural
milieu, that backdrops most of his 140 odd stories. These stories
53
are based on the life he shared in a constantly shifting scenario
suggestive of the city’s colourful, endlessly varied facets. The
milieu in which his characters move, breathe and have their being,
is the real New York of his day - with its endless allure, its
thousands of beckoning contrarities, inducements and denials that
he celebrated in story after story.
As the settings of his stories bear the stamp of authenicity,
he emphasises the varied social scene with an air of truthfulness
about the basic situations he arranges for his characters. Almost
invariably these situations are reflections of the everyday life of
the common man at work, at home or at play. He reflects the
contradictions of New York’s toiling masses, of the new work-
culture, of women-over-the - counter, the laughter shading-off into
signs of sadness and even despair. In his short stories, O. Henry
shows how in the given New York culture the police, the Church,
the welfare agencies and the labour unions tend rather to thrust
the innocent (for whose care and protection society creates
them), into the maw of predatory individuals (Elsie in New York). And so poor Elsie, a little peacherino who might have had a number
of safely respectable jobs, but for her protectors, winds up as a
model whose fate (0. Henry assures us by quoting Dickens) is to
be numbered among the “lost Your Excellency”1. For while Elsie
admires herself in Russian sables in the mirror, her employer, Otter
1 Collected stories of O, Henry, ( K Q e X h i; Ry pq auxd Co - p ■ 72~£>
is gleefully reserving a private dining room for two, with “the usual
band and the 85 Johannisburger with the roast”2
and O. Henry concludes painfully with a dig at the individuals
and the society :
Lost, Associations, and Societies.
Lost, Right Reverends and wrong
Reverends of every order. Lost,
Reformers and Lawmakers, bom
with heavenly compassion in your
hearts, but with the reverence of
money in your souls. And lost thus
around us every day?
O. Henry’s short stories have a whole lot of suffering
damsels, joyless existence of the shop girls — a picture of the
new life culture representative of the changes that gave anew
look to and affected every walk of life in turn resulting in the
changed attitudes and thinking of members of this new emerging
society and their values. 0. Henry’s short stories reflect a period
just becoming fully aware of the hardening class structure which
a burgeoning industrial era had imposed on America’s
democratic society and which the writer details so minutely and
accurately. Hotels, cafes, bars, cheap restaurants, theatres and
roof-gardens were an important fact of the 19th; 20th. century
2Collected stories of O. Henry., P 726.
3Ibid., P. 726.
New York culture and we see many of 0. Henry characters seeking
adventure escaping from the drabness of their existence to these
‘places-of-quick-flight’. 0 . Henry himself was a frequent visitor
and preserved their atmosphere in his stories. People who could
not afford such pleasures denied themselves for weeks to enjoy
one evening of luxury. They visited the haunts of the rich,
disguised as wealthy men and women. These excursions into a
dream world furnished their only pleasure in life in While the AutoWaits. The Caliph and the Cad and Lost on Dress Parade his
characters spend the one day allotted to them for pleasure in
forgetting their labours by fancying themselves in higher stations.
T y p ic a l ly in Lost on Dress Parade :out of each w e e k ’s earnings
Chandler set aside at $1 at the end of
each ten weeks. With the extra capital
thus accumulated, he purchased one
gentleman’s evening from the bargain
counter of Stingy Old Father Time. He
arrayed himself in the regalia of
millionaires and presidents, he took
himself to the quarter where life is
brightest and showiest, and there
dined with taste and luxury. With ten
dollars a man may, for a few hours,
play the wealthy idler to perfection.
T h e sum is ample for a well-
considered meal, a bottle bearing a
respectable label, commensurate lips,
a smoke, a cab fire, and the ordinary etceteras.4
because,Surely there is no pastime more
diverting than that of a mingling,
incognito, with persons of wealth and
station, where else but in those circles
can one see life in its primitive, crude
state unhampered by the conventions
that bind the dwellers in a lower
sphere.5
or as is reasoned in While the Auto Waits ,
... I come here to sit because here, only,
can I be near the great common, throbbing
heart of humanity. My part in life is cast
where its beats are never felt ...6
There is a definite sociological import in O. Henry’s stories. In
stories like Brick dust Row and An Unfinished Story , 0. Henry’s
deep concern about the unfortunate, especially the victims of
environments, is reflected. Brickdust Row depicts the damaging
effects on the lives of those whose surroundings are inadequate
and squalid. The Guilty Party attempts to show that slum children,
forced to play in the streets, are defeated in life before they start.
Collected stories of O. Henry. P. 411.
Ibid., The Caliph and the Cad, P. 445.
1G$.
O. H e n ry paints their plight with exactness,
Outside was one of those crowded streets
of the east side, in which, as twilight falls
Satan sets up his recruiting office. A mighty
host of children danced and ran and played
in the street. Some in rags, some in clean
white and beribboned, some wild and
restless as young hawks, some gentle-faced
and shrinking some shrieking rude and sinful
words, some listening, awed, but soon, grown
familiar to embrace — here were the children
playing in the corridors of the House of Sin.
Above the play ground forever hovered a great
bird. The bird was known to humorists as the
stork. But people of Chrystie street w ere betler
ornithologists. They called it a Vulture!
Yet again at anoth er place he exhibits his e a s y skill with
w o r d s and realistic depiction of situations and events.
And then followed the big city’s biggest
shame, its most ancient and rotten surviving
canker, its pollution and disgrace, its blight
and perversion, its forever infamy and guilt,
fostered, unreproved and cherished, handed
TCollected Stories of O.Henry, P. 712.
down from a long ago century of the basest
barbarity — the Hue and Cry. Nowhere but
in the big cities does it survive, and here most
of all, where the ultimate perfection of
culture, citizenship and alleged superiority
joins, bawling, in the chase.8
The Guilty Party is an East side tragedy, also a grim tale
of parental neglect which was made a full-page feature by the
Sunday World magazine editor, with a prize contest announced
for the best letter regarding it. It tells of a twelve-year-old girl,
Liz, who grows up to become a drunkard, murderess, and
suicide because of her father’s unwillingness to play with her as
a child. Employing his typical'envelope’ technique consisting of
a brief opening scene and of a swift transition to the main scene
couched in the form of a dream, 0. Henry achieved in this story
a meaningful domestic drama that suggests more truthfully than
most of his others some of the festering social problems
underlying the picturesque surface of metropolitan life. Like
most of others, it too suffers from an overdose of maudlin
sentimentality in its conclusion. Yet, it deserves merit.
It was on behalf of the shop girls, however, that 0. Henry
screamed loud and clear. An Unfinished Story ends with the
author at the bar of judgment being asked if he belongs to a
^'Collected stories of O. Henry, P. 714.
certain group;
W ho are they? “ I asked. ’’W h y ” said he,
" they are the men who hired working-girls
and paid’em five or six dollars a week
to live on. Are you one of the bunch?
“Not on your immortality”, said I.
“ I’m only the fellow that set fire to an
orphan asylum, and murdered a blindman
for his pennies.9
It is these stories that caused Theodore Roosevelt to
admit that it was 0. Henry who started him on his campaign for
office girls.
A Municipal Report, another of O.Henry best-known stories,
provides an especially good illustration of virtually all his
mannerisms and devices. The story takes its cue from a statement
of the novelist Frank Norris, quoted at the beginning, to the effect
that there are only three big cities in the United States that are
‘story cities’, - - New York, New Orleans and San Francisco. This,
0 . Henry suggests, in a rash statement, and he proceeds to tell a
tale refuting it. It is part of O.Henrys’ irony that Nashville is a
humdrum place, this being the initial impression of the first -person
narrator, who gets off the train in Nashville one evening and after
settling himself in his hotel can find nothing of interest to observe
Collected stories ofO, Henry, P. 692.
or do. But then comes a striking contrast when 0 . Henry
m a n u f a c tu re plot utilizing coincidence and surprise, which
indicates that there can be excitement and romance aplenty in this
apparently dull town-wondering what is happening in Buffalo.
0 . Henry is often meticulous about the background of his stories
and takes pains to give minute details. As in Transcients in Arcadia, he describes the Hotels broad staircases, the aerial
elevator gliding upward, carrying guests attended by guides in
brass buttons, the lofty dining room with its cool twilight, where
one dined at a snowy table on sea food —where watchful waiters
supplied every want before it is expressed, where the distant roar
of Broadway transforms to a pleasing murmur beneath a pailed
sky - across which delicate clouds drift and do not vanish as those
of nature do 'to our regret’.
The story of The Furnished Room centres around a young
man looking for his sweetheart, in a district of the lower west
side. She had disappeared from home and being a singer he
thought he could trace her where the city offered her
opportunities for the exercise of her talent. The lover went from
one theatre hall to another asking managers, chorus girls and
theatre audiences if they had seen a fair girl with reddish hair
and a dark mole near her left eyebrow. He rents a room in the
same district, asks his landlady the same question and receives
answer in the inevitable negative. His room although furnished,
is sordid in appearance with a musty smell and containing some
cast off lumber by previous occupants. In the midst of such
dismal surroundings the lover smells the strong, sweet odour of
mignonette, the odour his mistress loved. He reaches the room
frantically to discover any sign showing that she had lived there
but does not find it yet, he feels her presence, the odour producing
the impression. A mystical communion between the lovers seems
to take place, “Oh, God! Whence that odour and since when have
odours had a voice to call?"10 — he asks himself. The odour is
not however, purely imaginary for the landlady tells Mrs. McCool
about the suicide of the girl in the same room. She had
deliberately suppressed the fact from the lover fearing that it
would bring discredit to her house. The lover commits suicide in
the same room by turning on the gas. As he does this he senses
the girl’s presence as if she had come there to escort him to her
new abode. By his self-chosen death, he hopes to be united, in
Browning’s words, with the soul of his soul. Here in this story the
supernatural makes an oblique appearance by means of subtle
suggestions. The young man intuits something without having any
knowledge of the actual facts such an experience may happen and
the explanation is that extreme concentration produces powers
and subtleties of perception far beyond the common range.
,e Collected stories of O. Henry P. 328.
O.Henry valued human emotions and sacrifices as well as
the soothing and comforting effect of art and the sublime stature
of the artist. He prepares his readers in The last leaf for what
follows:
T H E P A T H E T I C S T O R Y O F T W O G I R L A R T I S T S
IN O L D N E W Y O R K A N D A G R A Y - H A I R E D
F A I L U R E W H O M A D E S U C C E S S F U L S A C R I F I C E S
A T T H E E N D . 11
The story of a sick girl’s fancy that her life will fail with the
falling of the last leaf from the ivy outside her window. The point
O.Henry conveys is that art can take the place of nature so n
convi^ingly that the girl regains her will to live, although the old
artist who paints the ivy leaf outside her window, the night that the
last leaf fell - - sacrifices his life in saving her’s.
O. Henry often pursues a method of pushing narrative to an
extreme point where both reader and the protagonist find dream
merging with reality, finer adjustments of proportion are visible
when the purpose is more realistic. Gifts of the Magi, a famous
story of the young married couple, each of whom sells a treasured
possession to obtain money to buy a Christmas present for the
other, examplifies this principle. In this story symmetrical
construction allows the theme of love, poverty and selflessness
to be unified within the narrow compass of a story less than
11 Collected Stories of O.Henry, P. 719.
three thousand words long. O. Henry sets the story on Christmas
eve and starts from a ready-made and emotionally charged point
of narrative focus against which he can place his poignant opening
picture. Della Dillingham Young is sobbing and as the realist
insists ‘sniffing ‘ — in her shabby furnished flat because she has
only a pittance to spend on her husband’s Christmas present. Early
on O. Henry signals clearly that meaning in this story is going to
emerge through contrast and pairings; having evoked Dellas’s
miserable situation he directs attention to two things— one
mechanical, the other natural which the reader knows instantly,
are destined to be brought into close connection before the story
ends. Now there were two possession of the James Dellingham
Youngs in which they took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold
watch that had been his father’s and his grand father’s. The other
was Della’s hair. And when Della proceeds to sell her hair in order
to buy a fob chain, ‘worthy of the watch’, the expectation of a
parallel action on Jim’s part is aroused. The narrative is confined
to Della until almost exactly half-way through the story,
when O. Henry creates a pause, freezing the image of a young
woman waiting and fretting about whether Jim will still find her
pretty. The second half of the story reveals that Jim has sold his
watch and brought combs worthy of Della’s beautiful vanished
hair — an outcome which offers the reader the satisfaction of
seeing two pieces of a simple puzzle interlock. The story works
by means of a simple ironic reversal in which each character’s
expectations of giving pleasure are defeated, while the reader
derives pleasure from the neatness of the pattern. 0. Henry,
however, makes larger claims for his story as the concluding part
makes clear:
And here I have lamely related to
you the uneventful chronicle of
two foolish children in a flat
who most unwisely sacrificed
for each other the greatest
treasures of their house. But
in a last word to the wise of
these days, let it be said that
of all who give gifts these two were
of the wisest. Of all who give
and receive gifts, such as they
were of the wisest. Everywhere
they are the wisest. T h e y are the
magi. 12
The writer exhibits clever plot-weaving invariably arising
from manipulation of a simple narrative pattern consisting of
situations evoked than reversed. A Service o f Love is another
12Collected stories of O. Henry, P. 763
sentimental story which follows the same ironies as Gifts of the Magi. It opens with a cut-and-dried statement of intent, “when
one loves one’s Art no service seems too hard. That is our
premise”. 13
The story while drawing a conclusion from it, shows that at
the same time the premise is incorrect. And the candid but teasing
opening puts the story firmly in the tradition of the riddle, the
quizzical joke based on hidden paradox, and as 0. Henry says
its literary heritage is ancient and venerable.
In A Cosmopolite in a cafe, the principle of substitution
pervades as the talkative E. Rushmore Coglan’s boastfulness
about his wide travels is overwhelmed by his belligerent defence
of his small-town home as in The Skylight Room the name
Billy Jackson given to a distant star by a romantic girl is translated
into the full ‘ Dr. William Jackson’ — of the doctor who snatches
her from the edge of starvation in the end. The next morning’s
paper bears an item. It recounted the reception into Bellevue
Hospital of a young woman who had been removed from
(Vo.49 - East street, suffering from debility induced by starvation. It
concluded with these words:
“ Dr. William Jackson, the ambulance physician who
attended the case says the patient will recover”14
0. Henry’s short stories bring out the fact of his interest
13 Collected Stories of O .H e n ry , P. 598
14 Ibid., P. 698.
in the two kinds of New York society — those who were under a
strain of some sort and those who were under a delusion. The
first stirred his sympathy; the second furnished him unending
entertainment. Both are abundantly represented in his stories.
Since this dichotomy takes most of us today, along with
Manhattan’s toiling millions of the 1900’s, it is easy to see why
0. Henry’s stories about these toiling millions still enjoy a
widespread popularity. And the fact remains that it was his apt
depiction and true criticism of the American way of life and
American capitalism that madeSoviets issue a commemorative
stamp in his honour, on his centennial anniversary.
In fact, 0. Henry is a minor classic who occupies a permanent,
unique spot in American literature. He used his undoubted
powers to reflect the here-and-now for the instant effect upon his
reader. And his uniqueness in the light of his total accomplishment
means to acknowledge his technical accomplishments. He uses
his technical skills liberally but carefully with commendable
success, in his short stories. In his art manner rather than matter
is the significant element.
The most obvious technical manifestation of O -H e n ry ’s
delight in the unexpected is, of course, in his famous surprise
endings, for scarcely a single story among his nearly three
hundred fails to meet his specifications for a conclusion other than
the one the re ade r is ap pare ntly being p r epared for. In shee r
quantity his surprise en ding s are therefore impressive, th o ugh
qualitatively too, too m an y of them are so patently contr ived that
the sophisticated reader soon tires of the guessing contest which
then anticipated d isc o v e ry interposes be tw een himself and the
author.
T h o u g h the element of surprise e n ding entered the short
story with the e m e r g e n c e of the form itself, in its va r io us forms,
the surprise ending included the hoax and the practical joke,
the ant i -conventional or distorted revelation of events, the
pa ra d o x ica l or antithetical d isc lo sure , the m a n ip u la t io n of
psychological concepts, the double reversal, the problem close
— all of w h i c h h a d b e e n w o r k e d w i t h v a r y i n g s u c c e s s b y
0 . H e n r y ’s p re d e c e s s o r s and con te m po rar ies — but he used
the surprise ending until it b e ca m e familiarly associated with his
name. A n d the surprise ending achieved by 0 . H e n ry is no trick. It
is the valid and inevitable finish that the re ade r sho uld h a v e
expected all along.
In The Ransom of Mack, the entire plot is neatly m a n a g e d
on the basis of misinterpreted dialogue firmly conta ined within a
narrator’s dis in genuous recital of events that seemin gly followed
o ne ano ther in a perfectly natural order. T r i c k y and clever, yet
d e ce p t ive ly simple, the te chn iq ue results in an e n ding that is
un ex pected . Yet, satisfactory, logically p r epared for and quite
amusing. Here within the framework of the narrative O. H e n ry has
carefully and ec onomical ly — s e t u p the m ea ns of re achin g its
i n e v i t a b l e o u t c o m e . T h e p o r t r a y a l of the c h a r a c t e r s is
c o n v in c in g ly realistic and their creator su c ce e d s in making them
a p p e a r to be mom entar ily important through the dexterity with
w hich he m a n a g e s their hum o ro us predicament. F o r in the sam e
s im ple p a s s a g e s of d ia lo g ue he not only reveals their c on c ern
a n d masks from the re ade r their ig n o ran ce of the truth (thus
a c h ie v in g a major of c haracter izat ion) but also keeps the plot
moving dramatically forward. Another aspect of 0 . H e n ry ’s technical
leg erdem a in seen here, his skill in making s e e m in g ly irrelevant,
off-hand remarks do double duty. Fo r R e b o s a ’s c om m ent that Ella
No ak es w as once wild about Eddie, not only throws a fresh and
un ex p e c te d light on her own attitude, but at the s a m e time
e n h a n c e s the young m a n ’s desirabil ity and also helps confirm
the re ade r ’s suspicion that she too, for prudential reasons, would
nevertheless consider passing him up to marry an older man whom
she cares nothing for.
In 0 . H e n r y ’s stories realistic dialogue and descriptive
p h r a s e o l o g y c o n ta in in g the u n lo o k e d for term c o n s ta n t ly
operates to produce fresh surpr ises and incidental delights.
O v e r the w ho le stretch of O. H e n r y ’s writings his facility in
rendering the speech patterns and rhythms of incidental c om m on
folk adds much to the vivacity, variety a n d interest of his stories.
O. H e n r y m akes all his ro m antic ized types s e e m important —
even the dregs of humanity — by portraying them sympathetically
and hum orously through their own language. A s a stylist his most
striking trait is humour, and once again, it is worth noting that
O . H e n r y ’s ho m o u r is his own. H u m o u r resulting from clever turns
of phrase, from unusual and unexpected word combinat ions and
distort ions — the h u m o u r of surprise — is thus central to
0 . H e n r y ' s t e c h n i q u e . P u n s , c o i n a g e s , s o p h i s t r i e s , s l a n g ,
m a l a p r o p i s m of v a r io us kinds are all a m o n g that s ta n d a rd
lo g o m a c h ic de vices he used over and o ver again to keep his
re a d e rs on the qui vive. H e usual ly c on centrate d them in his
o p e n i n g p a s s a g e s but he a lso s p r i n k l e d t h e m l ib e r a l ly
throughout his stories. A n example of his breezy method of story-
openin g :
In the Big city a man will disappear
with the suddenness and completeness
of the flame of a candle that is blown out.
A l l t h e a g e n c i e s o f i n q u i s i t i o n - t h e h o u n d s
o f t h e trai l , t h e s l e u t h s o f t h e c i t y ’s
l a b y r i n t h s , t h e c l o s e t d e t e c t i v e s o f t h e o r y
a n d i n d u c t i o n — wil l b e i n v o k e d to t h e
search. Most often the man’s face will
be seen no more. 15
And in Squaring the Circle ,At the hazard of wearying you this
tale of vehement emotions must be
prefaced by a discourse on geometry.
Nature moves in circles; Art in
straight lines. Th e natural is rounded;
the artificial is made up of angles. A
man lost in the snow wanders, in
spite of himself in perfect circles, the
city m an’s feet, denaturalized by
rectangular streets and floors, carry
him ever away from himself.16
The Cactus, o pen s thus:
The most notable thing about Time
is that it is so purely relative. A
large amount of reminiscence is
by common consent, conceded to
the drowning man; and it is not
past belief that one may review
an entire courtship while removing
one’s gloves.17
O. Henry’s ingenuity contrived elaborate word play, in order to
15 Collected Stories of O.Henry, 'The Sleuths' P. 553.
16 Ibid. , P. 56 7 ,
17 Ibid, P. 201.
71
spice his tales and keep his readers chuckling. H e tempers with
sta nd ard idioms so as to p r o d u c e both pure and antithetical
malapropisms blundering misquotations, often brilliantly original
in conception:
“ O u r friend Lee A n d r e w s will ag ain swim the H e l l ’s point
tonight.’’18
A nd:
Now, there was a woman that
would have tempted an anchovy
to forget his vows. She was not
so small as she was large; and
a kind of welcome air seemed to
mitigate her vicinity. 19
0 , H e n r y ’s artistry with w o r d s c a n be s e e n in his
h u m o r o u s l i t e r a r y a l l u s i o n s , c h i e f l y to w e l l - k n o w n
S h a k e s p e a r i a n plays and the ancient classics as well as to his
fa v o u r i te The Arabian Nights. H is p u r p o s e is g e n e r a l l y
h u m o r o u s but these also show the writers deftness in turning
to account his breezy familiarity with Shakespeare, w ho se phrases
he u s u a l l y w o v e into his o w n s e n t e n c e s with a d e l ic a te ,
o ccasional ly so mew hat artificial, twist.
A D o u b le D y e d Deceiver:
On the Rio Grande border if you take
18 C o l l e c t e d S to r ie s of O . H e n r y . , H e a r t s and C r o s s e s , P. 567.
19 Ibid. , Telemachus Friend.P. 756.
a m an's life you som etim es take trash;but i f you take his horse, you take ath ing the loss o f which renders
him p o o r indeed, and which enriches y o u n o t — if y o u a r e c a u g h t . 20
“ Who steals my purse steals trash.
It’s something, nothing ...
But he that filches from me my good name
Robs me of that which not enriches him
And makes me poor indeed.”
( Othello, 111; Hi)0. Henry shared a feeling of togetherness with his readers
— sharing the same point of view, and that only a matter of chance
therefore caused him rather than his reader to think of the
appropriate comparison first. This, too, was part of the charm of
the master trickster, capable of selecting repeatedly the
unexpected word or phrase, which yet seemed in its context the
inevitable choice to fit the occasion and thus contribute to that
absolute harmony of tone so essential to the short story writer.
As a rhetorician, 0. Henry is often at his best in
descriptive passages lightly sketching in the vivid yet
characteristic detail — such as the park-bench sleepers and
20 Collected Stories of O.HenrytP. 750.
relating them to their temporal and spatial environment, often
with pun or double-entendre half concealed in the texture of his
prose. Often his sh eer love of w o rd s breaks loose into colourful
p a s s a g e s which, even though not wholly g e r m a n e to his plot,>
ne ve rth e le ss seize the readers attention and get him to see,
h ea r an d feel the life relived on the printed pa ge. T h e essential
c leverness of an 0 . Henry story is artfully concealed beneath the
surface level of pse udo-c leverness sufficient to delight the many
w h o read on the run. The Poet and the Peasant like so m a n y
other 0 . H e n ry stories is simple entertainment and also has the
p o w e r to divert and amuse, spr ings from a series of o bv ious
re lated ironies. H e re the narrator g iv es an a b s u r d ly c o m ic
portrayal of the y o un g Ulsterman, and from his narrators slangy
i n s o u c i a n c e in j u x t a p o s in g the two s e e m i n g l y u n r e l a t e d
ac counts , welding them together as though there w e re nothing
out of the ordinary in doing so, and applying two different idioms
to his two g ro ups of characters. A s this superficial tr ickery
provides ample entertainment, beneath this surface level there is
su g g e s te d also a cluster of related truths about art and life,
about h u m a n fallibility in distinguishin g the g e n u in e from the
spurious.
O. H e n r y see m s to ally with those w ho bel ie ved that the
pr ime p u rp o s e of a story is to entertain. T h e p r e -p o n d e r a n c e
of light foolery and ro m a n c e in nearly all his stories — most of
them written un d e r contract to fill the Sunday World p a g e ea ch
week, offers fairly convincing proof that O. H e n ry not only g au g e d
the taste of his mass reading public quite accurately but also knew
h o w to satisfy it. A n d it is in fact O . H e n r y ’s tryst with te chn iq ue
rather than anything else that is the true m e a su re of his artistry.
A n d it was his technical dexterity that enabled him to ac hieve the
precise literary effects which he deliberately intended to produce.