A study on social reality’s reflection in O. Henry’s selected short stories

Language is one of the most effectively communicative ways among each other. It is also a bridge linking us with the world civilization. Besides using fluently native language, knowing foreign language is really necessary. English is the key to open the integration door. Learning English has become an indispensible need for everyone. Learning English not only knows about basic skills, grammar or pronunciation but also knows about culture as well as literature. Literature is a part of a country’s culture, heritage and history. It gives us a detailed preview of human experience. Moreover, literature is also important in learning a foreign language due to literature improves reading fluency through the expansion of vocabulary and grammar structure. Thanks to reading literatures, readers will be broadened knowledge about traditional culture, value and belief of people and gives us a deeper understanding about language we are learning. In early 20th century, American literature had important movements in drama, poetry, fiction and criticism took place in the years before, during and after World War I. The authors at this period struggled to understand the changes occurring in society. There are various themes on war, love, people, culture…which are known with many notable writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, Mark Twain, Margaret Mitchel….especially O. Henry. O. Henry is a wonderful creativeness. The most ordinary events (a menu, a drab house, a walkway to the house ...) turned into the uniqueness of his work. His story expressed the life experience and therefore his characters are placed on the real people whom he was acquainted. He wrote about social issues and economics of lower class. He put the voiceless people into his work with compassion and sympathy. His works are from these experiences of his observation and the social reality has been reflected in his books so much. The America’s social reality in early 20th century was shown deeply and wholly. Due to the reason above, the researcher decided to choose the study with title “A study on social reality’s reflection in O. Henry’s selected short stories” with the aim to do an analysis the social reflection expressed in the some short stories.

PART A INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale

Language is one of the most effectively communicative ways among each other It is also a bridge linking us with the world civilization Besides using fluently native language, knowing foreign language is really necessary English

is the key to open the integration - door Learning English has become an indispensible need for everyone

Learning English not only knows about basic skills, grammar or pronunciation but also knows about culture as well as literature Literature is a part of a country’s culture, heritage and history It gives us a detailed preview of human experience Moreover, literature is also important in learning a foreign language due to literature improves reading fluency through the expansion of vocabulary and grammar structure Thanks to reading literatures, readers will be broadened knowledge about traditional culture, value and belief of people and gives us a deeper understanding about language we are learning

In early 20th century, American literature had important movements in drama, poetry, fiction and criticism took place in the years before, during and after World War I The authors at this period struggled to understand the changes occurring in society There are various themes on war, love, people, culture…which are known with many notable writers such as Ernest Hemingway, Jack London, Mark Twain, Margaret Mitchel….especially O Henry

O Henry is a wonderful creativeness The most ordinary events (a menu,

a drab house, a walkway to the house ) turned into the uniqueness of his work His story expressed the life experience and therefore his characters are placed on the real people whom he was acquainted He wrote about social issues and economics of lower class He put the voiceless people into his work with compassion and sympathy His works are from these experiences of his observation and the social reality has been reflected in his books so much The America’s social reality in early 20th century was shown deeply and wholly

Due to the reason above, the researcher decided to choose the study with

title “A study on social reality’s reflection in O Henry’s selected short stories”

with the aim to do an analysis the social reflection expressed in the some short stories

In another “O Henry and his short story” by Meng Lingmin, The

researcher showed that O Henry’s mouths-piece of lover people, the sympathy for the poor people and its origin, reflecting the ordinary people and its origin, characteristics of his writing

2.2 In Vietnam

In Viet Nam, many people like and read his stories There is also a study

on “Nghệ thuật xây dựng cốt truyện trong truyện ngắn O Henry” (The art of

building plot in O Henry short stories) by Pham Yen My, Van Hien University The researcher studied on how to build plot in O Henry stories

2.3 In Hung Vuong University

There is a study on “O Henry’s warm human sympathy for common people in his short stories: “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Last Leaf” by Phan

Thi Huyen In this study, the researcher analyzed O Henry’s warm human sympathy for common people in two stories However, this is the first time the study on O Henry’s social reality’s reflection in his short stories is carried out in Hung Vuong University

3 Research purpose

The research aims at:

- Scrutinizing the American society in O Henry’s time, the author O Henry and his social reality’s reflection

- Analyzing the social reality’s reflection in “The Gift of the Magi”, “The Last Leaf”’ and “The Furnished Room”

- Finding out the messages O Henry tries to convey to the readers through the real social pictures expressed in “The Last Leaf”, “The Gift of the Magi” and

“The Furnished Room”

4 Research Questions

The research will find out the answers to the following questions:

- What is the social reality’s reflection in O Henry’s selected short stories –

“The Last Leaf”, “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Furnished Room”?

-What is the message of O Henry through social reality’s reflection in “The Last Leaf”, “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Furnished Room”?

5 Research Methods

In order to accomplish this thesis systematically and adequately, some research methods are used:

- Theoretical method: Studying the related documents to give background of

America society and American literature in at the end of 19th century and early

20th century, the life and career of O Henry and three short stories “The Last Leaf”, “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Furnished Room”

- Analysis method: from data got from many different materials related to the

topic, analyzing to get the final results

- Inductive and deductive methods: are used to analyze the social reality in two

short stories

6 Scope of the research

The study focuses on analyzing the social reality’s reflection in three O Henry’s short stories: “The Gift of the Magi”, “The Last Leaf” and “The Furnished Room”

7 Design of the study

The study consists of three parts and references:

Part A Introduction

In this part, the researcher gives an overall introduction about rationale, research purpose, research question, methods, research procedure, and scope of the study

Part B The study

Chapter 1: Literature review

In this part, the study focus on giving the relationship between reality and literature, giving the background of American society, the feature of American literature in late 19th century and early 20th century and O Henry’s biography and literary career and his works “The Gift of the Magi”, “The Last Leaf” and

“The Furnished Room”

Chapter 2: The social reality’s reflection in O Henry’s stories and in “The Last Leaf”, “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Furnished Room”

An analysis on the picture of social reality which is presented in three O Henry’s selected short stories about the life, destiny and love of human

Chapter 3: The messages of O Henry through social reality’s reflection in

“The Last Leaf”, “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Furnished Room”

Through analyzing social reality reflected in O Henry’s stories, researcher will show some messages which the writer wants to send to readers

and his works “The Gift of the Magi”, “The Last Leaf” and “The Furnished Room”

PART B THE STUDY CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW

In the chapter of the relationship between reality and literature, theoretical background, the social background, the features of literature in late 19th century and early 20th century as well as his biography and his short stories “The Gift of the Magi”, “The Last Leaf” and “The Furnished Room” will be shown The first part is about the relationship between reality and literature The second is about background of American society in O Henry’s time The third is about American literature’s features in the early 20th century The last is about O Henry’s lifetime, his writing features, the two stories “The Gift of the Magi”,

“The Last Leaf” and “The Furnished Room”

1.1 The relationship between reality and literature

As being given in “Van hoc va hien thuc trong tam nhin hien dai” (Literature and reality in modern vision) by Tran Dinh Su (2010), literature and

reality is a central problem in the theory of literature According to the analysis

of American literary theorist M H Abrams, most of literary theories are all built

on the relationship of the basic elements of following art activities:

From the relationship between the works (literary) with the world, we have ancient stimulation theory and reflected theory today From the relationship between the works with artists, we have creative theory From the work itself in the relationship between the artists and recipients, we have

World (Reality)

content, meanings, symbols, games, entertainment Therefore, literature reflecting the reality is still a basic, important and indispensable principle

1.1.1 Literature is the mirror that reflects reality and time

From the Renaissance to modern times, the ideological of realistic simulation is still primarily thought of criticism As Stanhdal in Tran Dinh Su

(2010), “Van hoc va hien thuc trong tam nhin hien dai”, said that “Literature is the mirror of social life”, or Balzac “the writer is secretary of the times” and Lenin “if you are a great writer, your works reflects at least a few key aspects of revolution” For the masters of realism, the reality’s reflection means that looks

for the value perceptions, morality and aesthetics of life, strips of lies, exposes all ulcers, rips all mask and throw oneself into the process of social progress The ideas that were expressed quite right about the relationship between literature and historical life on the overall level, means that all the events, characters, thoughts and feelings expressed in literature are the reflection of society

Once there was a common assumption that along with everything else that gave meaning to literature the mastery of language and form, the personality of the author, the moral authority, the degree of originality, the reactions of the reader hardly anything could be more central to it than the text's interplay with the "real world." Literature, especially fiction, was unapologetically about the life we live outside of literature, the social life, the emotional life, the physical life, the specific sense of time and place This was especially true after the growth of literary realism in England in the eighteenth century with Defoe and Richardson; in France in the early nineteenth century with Stendhal and Balzac; in Russia at midcentury with Tolstoy; in England again with George Eliot, Dickens, and Trollope; and finally in America with Mark Twain, Henry James, and William Dean Howells, who became the tireless promoter of a whole school of younger realists

1.1.2 Reality in literature is the meaningful world created by practice

According to “Van hoc va hien thuc trong tam nhin hien dai” (Literature and reality in modern vision) by Tran Dinh Su (2010), the concept of reality as

objective existence, independent with human consciousness has been inappropriate with the fact The reality in literature is not same to the reality of the social sciences, natural sciences and politics The reality in literature closely connects to politics, but it is not entirely similar with the political reality As L.Tolstoi said that we can understand that the literature’s reality is the meaningful world that people live in it The universe, nature, people, society, culture, objects are only reality when they are meaningful for human Practice allows people to discover the sense of world for both life and arts The mean of things changes over the course of practice Literature reflects the reality comprehensively

Without this tissue of correspondence to the real world, literature would

be little more than a language game, a self-enclosed world operating entirely by its own rules Whatever passion or energy goes into a game, the moves have no reference to anything outside the frame; and when it's over, it's over until the next game begins Literature, on the other hand, especially fiction, has an open grid We live on intimate terms with the characters in any effective novel They sometimes seem more real to us than the people we know, in part because they're purged of accident or contradiction, purified into whatever they essentially are We may feel shocked and impoverished when a novel ends, and even speculate about what might happen after the curtain goes down Literary form lays down strict rules (such as rhyme and meter in certain kinds of poetry), but in any actual work these rules are constantly being stretched and modified, even flouted The creative process involves a curious alchemy between our perceptions and the words we find to express them, between the signifiers of language and the object world to which it beckons

Realism also encouraged writers to explore the social conditions created

by the growth of industry, the new working class, the expansion of cities, the flow of immigrants, the changing position of women, the decline of rural life, the impact of technology, the emergence of America as a new force in the world, the impact of war and violence, the surge of nationalism and anti-Semitism, the power of race and ethnicity, the dissolution of hierarchy, the loss of religious

belief, the rise of democracy and dictatorship, the accumulation of wealth, the increase in travel and leisure, the shifts in manners and morals, the development

of the mass media, and hundreds of other social changes that could be condensed into the trajectory of individual lives

1.2 The background of American society in late 19 th century and early 20 th century

In late 19th century and early 20th century, industrialization has brought the society many important changes.The simple, frugal, self-sustaining lives of the early pioneers were replaced with an industrial age which changed the country almost overnight Great cities were built along the coast lines and at strategic central point; railroads links every part of the country; and sprawling factories offered inducements workers to quit tilling the soil These changes were shown in many aspects about economy, politic and society As according

to C.C Regier in The Era of Muckrakers (p.5) “In the years that elapsed between the days of Irving, Hawthorne, and Poe, and those of O Henry, great and momentous changes took place in both the economic and social structures

This great concentration of wealth, together with the settlement of all the public lands, made exceedingly slight any opportunity the working man might have to achieve economic independence and caused all kinds of social reactions

in the country The spectacle of train robberies, of organized bandit groups, of riots and strikes in the laboring groups began to be a familiar part of the life of the country Tenements in the large cities brought almost unbelievable living conditions in many cases, and the growth of big business put thousands of workers on small daily wages Craft and corruption were evident both in private and in public life Beginning in 1901 and 1902, rising to its full force in 1903 and 1904, and lasting until 1911 or 1912, a passion for change swept the country

About political, public resentment during the thirty years previous to 1900 expressed itself in such ways as the “granger movement”, the “ailver crusade”, and populism Largely political, these movements found little support in the respectable press for a while, but by 1904 there was a ringing chorus of abuses and protests in the newspapers and magazines The writers did not merely call attention to the existing evils; they gave specific names and dates Verbal bricks were thrown at some of the wealthiest and most powerful citizens of the land These muckrakers, as the writers were called, were intelligent, educated men and women who wore enraged at the corruption in municipal, state, and national governments They were fighting for fundamental principles, and they did not hesitate to hit hard and often Such were the existing circumstances when O Henry, William Sidney Porter in private life, began to add his voice the chorus

in the early part of the twentieth century

Expansionism and political crisis alongside the social transformation, was

an important historical fact of United States in the 19th century This was a consequential result of industrial revolution America in the early century was a loosely structured society and every section, every state, every locality; every group could pretty much go its own way But gradual changes in technology and

in the economy were bringing all the elements of the country into steady and close contact, better connectivity _transportation and the word (communication),

played an important role in breaking through the barriers and breaking down isolation _ canals, toll roads, and rail roads on the one hand and publication of penny newspapers, and telegraph system gave a greater sense of togetherness to the people while big business provided order and stability Yet the other side of the story was that for many Americans this change from a largely rural, slow moving, fragmented, national social order in the mid-century was abrupt and painful which was often resisted Unfortunately sometimes resentment against change manifested itself in harsh attacks upon those who appeared to be the agents of change especially the newly arrived

About society, the industrial revolution that took place at the end of the 19th century changed our country in remarkable way People left rural homes for opportunities in urban cities With the development of new machinery and equipment, the U.S economy became more focused on factory production; Americans did not have to chiefly rely on farming and agriculture to support their families At the same time, immigrants from all over the world crowded into tenements to take advantage of new urban opportunities In the end, the sweeping economic, social, and political changes that took place in post-war life allowed American Realism to prevail (According to website http://www.westga.edu/mmcfar/worksheetAmerican Realism.htm)

Urbanization (the rapid growth of cities) went hand in hand with industrialization (the growth of factories and railroads), as well as expansion of farming Between 1860 and 1900, fourteen million immigrants came to the United States A great many of them settled in the port of entry This skyrocketing population led to many changes in America’s largest cities New buildings were constructed to house the growing population New schools and hospitals opened Mass-transit systems were put into operation Settlement houses came into existence in the poorest neighborhoods The rapid growth was made possible by high levels of immigration From 1865 through 1918 an unprecedented and diverse stream of immigrants arrived in the United States, 27.5 million in total In all, 24.4 million (89%) came from Europe, including 2.9

million from Britain, 2.2 million from Ireland, 2.1 million from Scandinavia, 3.8 million from Germany, 4.1 million from Italy, 7.8 million from Russia and other parts of eastern and central Europe Another 1.7 million came from Canada Most came through the port of New York City, and from 1892, through the immigration station on Ellis Island, but various ethnic groups settled in different locations New York and other large cities of the East Coast became home to large Jewish, Irish, and Italian populations, while many Germans and Central Europeans moved to the Midwest, obtaining jobs in industry and mining At the same time, about one million French Canadians migrated from Quebec to New England

Immigrants were pushed out of their homelands by poverty or religious threats, and pulled to America by jobs, farmland and kin connections They found economic opportunity at factories, mines and construction sites, and found farm opportunities in the Plains states

The social background of the characters in O Henry’s short stories becomes much more comprehensive if we look closely at the author’s life, his experiences, his friends and acquaintances

1.3 The features of American literature in late 19th century and early 20th century

American literature has developed on the basis of social history and culture with American characteristics American literature is still young and develops along with the establishment of the country but it has a premise from the rich diversity of history, cultural harmony and powerful races take place, as well as being based on extremely unique folklore There is not only the literature

of the native Indians but also the folklore of the peoples of white American settlers on the land National character and social development of the United States over the period also strongly impact literature

The 19th century and early 20th century witnessed this paradigm shift across cultures and literature written there around saw it projected with sincerity and firmness of purpose

In most people's minds, the years following the Civil War symbolized a time of healing and rebuilding For those engaged in serious literary circles, however, that period was full of upheaval A literary civil war raged on between the camps of the romantics and the realists and later, the naturalists People waged verbal battles over the ways that fictional characters were presented in relation to their external world

Using plot and character development, a writer stated his or her philosophy about how much control mankind had over his own destiny For example, romantic writers such as Ralph Waldo Emerson celebrated the ability

of human will to triumph over adversity On the other hand, Mark Twain, William Dean Howells and Henry James were influenced by the works of early European Realists, namely Balzac's La Comedie Humaine (begun in the 1830s); Turgenev's Sportsman's Sketches (1852); and Flaubert's Madame Bovary (1856)

These American realists believed that humanity's freedom of choice was limited by the power of outside forces At another extreme were naturalists Stephen Crane and Frank Norris who supported the ideas of Emile Zola and the determinism movement Naturalists argued that individuals have no choice because a person's life is dictated by heredity and the external environment The realism of the 1880s featured the works of Twain, Howells and James among other writers American Realists concentrated their writing on select groups or subjects Examples of this practice include the factory workers of Upton Sinclair and Rebecca Harding David, Paul Lawrence Dunbar and Charles Chesnutt's stories of black life and Kate Chopin's views of marriage and women's roles

The writing during this period was also very regional The industrial revolution called for standardization, mass production of goods and streamlined channels of distribution America was leaping into a new modern age and people feared that local folkways and traditions would be soon forgotten Responding to these sentiments, realistic writers set their stories in specific American regions, rushing to capture the "local color" before it was lost They drew upon the

sometimes grim realities of everyday life, showing the breakdown of traditional values and the growing plight of the new urban poor American realists built their plots and characters around people's ordinary, everyday lives Additionally, their works contained regional dialects and extensive dialogue which connected well with the public As a result, readers were attracted to the realists because they saw their own struggles in print Conversely, the public had little patience for the slow paced narratives, allegory and symbolism of the romantic writers America was shifting into higher gear and readers wanted writers who clearly communicated the complexities of their human experiences

At its basic level, realism was grounded in the faithful reporting of all facets of everyday American life According to William Dean Howells,

"Realism is nothing more and nothing less than the truthful treatment of material" (Carter, 36) The reading public's preference for realism parallels the changes that were occurring at the end of the 19th and into the 20th century

(According to website http://www.westga.edu/mmcfar/worksheet AmericanRealism.htm)

1.4 O Henry’s life and his works “The Gift of the Magi”, “The Last Leaf” and “The Furnished Room”

1.4.1 O Henry’s life and works

O Henry, whose real name was William Sydney Porter, was rated as the best short story writer in the United States in the early years of the twentieth century He was born in Greensboro, North Carolina in 1862 In 1877, when he was fifteen years old, he left school to work in a pharmacy At the age of twenty,

he was in severe pain and deteriorating health, so he had convalescence at a farm in the state of Texas He lived there two years and got acquainted with many people and clearly understood western personality Later, he talked about them in vivid collection of short stories titled emotional Western Heart

In 1884, O Henry moved to the city of Austin (Texas) and became a bank clerk In 1877, he eloped with 17-year-old Athol Estes, daughter of a wealthy Texas businessman The period from 1887 to 1891 was the happiest time in O

Henry’s life He and his young wife rented a tiny set of rooms and began thinking about starting a family With his wife’s support, he began to write stories for national magazines Athol probably was the model for Della in “The Gift of the Magi”, his most famous work

Outside of work, he wrote and has had short stories published And then disaster stroke to him In 1896, he was accused greedy coffers Although he swore his innocence, he still felt confused and fled to Honduras (a country in Central America, between Mexico and South America) Six months later, his wife died, he immediately returned and was arrested He was convicted and imprisoned in a federal prison in Columbus (Ohio) nearly three years

In prison, O Henry continued writing At first time, he wrote the story for the purpose of earning money to buy Christmas gifts for girls Main pseudonym

O 'Henry has been used After he released from prison, in 1902, O Henry moved to New York City, living by writing

In New York, O Henry got lucky at the beginning He has signed a contract with the New York World newspaper in which he would publish a story each week Now he can live and devote his life to literature In 1904, O Henry firstly published Cabbages and Kings, taking themes from Central American countries and had great success Next, he published the collection The Four Million (1906 ) , The Lamp Trimmer (1907 ) , The Heart of the West (1907 ) , Voice of The City (1908 ) , Roads of Destiny (1909 ) , Options (1909 ) , Strictly Business (1910) and Whirligigs (1910) Two sets Rolling Stones and The Waifs and Strays were published in 1910 Porter died penniless and alone in 1910

With the unexpected death of O Henry in 1910 there came a scramble to secure every scrap of his production for a subscription set He has been enormously creative; his total product, almost all of it the work of six years, was over two hundred pieces, not counting the scraps in the thirteenth volume of a

complete set of his works A slogan was adopted “England has her Dickens, France has her Hugo, and American has her O Henry.”

During his 10 year literary career, O Henry wrote about 300 short stories Most of his stories are set in his own time, in contemporary present – the early years of the 20th century Many of them take place in New York City and deal for most part with ordinary people: clerks, policemen, waitresses

O Henry was an outstanding humorist He worked out and enriched all the types of the short story: the anecdote, the adventure story, tales and sketches The best of his works were published in books: “Cabbages and Kings”, “The Four Million”, “Heart of the West”, “The Voice of the City” and others He was most famous for his stories of city O Henry wrote nearly 150 stories with a New York background His works have considerable influence on American literature He was a born writer of great talent The conversation is witty, humorous and often exact and precise O Henry is one of the most widely published American authors His works have been translated into nearly every language He has been called “The American Maupassant” and is ranked among the world’s outstanding short story writers

1.4.2 Some main feature of O Henry’s stories

1.4.2.1 Story Structure

“Porter's first biographer”, C Alphonso Smith, pointed out in O Henry

Biography (1916) that O Henry's stories had four stages In the first stage, O Henry gets the reader's attention with a striking opening situation, called "the arresting beginning." Exposition takes place at this stage In the second stage, the rising action, the reader begins to guess the story's ending In the third stage, the climax, the reader learns that he or she was wrong about the ending In the fourth stage, the falling action, the story concludes The ending is triumphant with a surprise involving sudden suspense This is the story's resolution

1.4.2.2 Story Elements

O Henry's stories were written to help people escape from their everyday problems The author had been a skilled storyteller since he was a teenager He used to entertain people in his uncle's drugstore and on the Texas ranch where he lived as a young man He wanted his stories to be entertaining and enjoyable To

achieve this, he uses lively dialogue, vivid and quickly drawn descriptions, humor, irony, chance happenings, and surprise endings

In 1908, critic Henry James Forman wrote that "No talent could be more original or more delightful The combination of technical excellence with whimsical, sparkling wit, abundant humor and a fertile invention is so rare that the reader is content without comparisons." (According to website

http://literarism.blogspot.com/2011/02/themes-styles-techniques-ofohenry.html)

1.4.2.3 Language feature

Porter has an immense vocabulary and an acute sensitivity to word usage

Even such censorious critics as Fred Lewis Patee, who in The Development of American Short Story condemned the “utter artificiality” of the speech of

Porter’s characters, had to admit Porter’s “verbal precision and wide range of vocabulary”, conceding that “not even [ American realistic novelist] Henry could choose words more fastidiously or use them more accurately Porter’s careful use of words was especially evident in his descriptive passages, which,

as Current – Garcia noted, are “cunningly fitted into the structure of his narrative

so that they are made to appear not simply gratuitous lingual ornaments but integral part of the tale.”

The most significant characteristic of O Henry’s language is humor O Henry’s humor is sometimes supplied by character portrayal, sometimes by the lifelike dialogue, sometimes by his style It mainly derives from his style In some parts of the story and mainly in asides in which he addresses the readers directly O Henry gives himself free rein in using long, high – sounding words for humorous effects as well as using the big, pretentious words for very ordinary and familiar things He is playing as if someone said “terminate the illumination” when he meant “turn out the light”

We found Henry James Forman, of the editorial staff of the North American Review, declares, he writes with the skills of Maupassant and with the humor that Maupassant never dreams of, (“Forman 1908; 783) O Henry was an inveterate story teller, seemingly purely from the pleasure of it, but he never told

a vulgar of joke, and as much as he loved humor he would not sacrifice decency for its sake That’s what is called O Henry’s humor Soapy’s misfortune is one

of typical story told by O Henry in his unique way, and the effect is that we can smile with tears while turning his pages

1.4.2.4 Coincidence

O Henry's plots often involve coincidence Coincidence (chance or luck) also plays a key role in most of O Henry's stories The odd coincidences that the characters experience add another element of humor to the story Besides, the common Porter’s trademark ones, which are his reversal of the narrative and his reversal of his characters’ nature Along the story, we see that the events are interrelated to each other with coincidence and at the end there is what we call a surprise twist

In these stories and others, the coincidence acts as a kind of warm-up to the story's surprise ending Coincidence is something that O Henry enjoyed using in his work along with the surprise endings He loved it because both of these tools together kept the reader attention and kept the suspense up for the entire story

There are many coincidental plots in many short stories by O Henry This

is another characteristic of writing

1.4.2.5 Surprise Endings

O Henry's stories are perhaps best known for their surprise endings, to the point that such an ending is often referred to as an “O Henry ending.” As we know the ending of an article has long been considered as a conclusion or just a summary of a whole passage O Henry was called the American answer to Guy

de Maupassant Both authors wrote twist ending, but O Henry stories were much more playful and optimistic It means that at the end of an article the mental status or the fate of the character has changed greatly but the whole passage suddenly endowed with a great charm because of the ending The twist ending not only gives the readers a sudden fall but also make us think plausibly

He set the story running in one direction and then he converts completely the story just when the reader is convinced of the general direction of the narrative If we look back the total story the ending seems logical and plausible

As a “plot – maker” and designer of incident he is an amazing genius No one can do better than him to hole the reader in suspense More than that, the reader scarcely knows that he is suspended until the very close to the end of the story Just as turn on the lights and the whole tale is revealed in it’s entirely

1.4.3 O Henry’s selected short stories: “The Gift of the Magi”, “The Last Leaf” and “The Furnished Room”

1.4.3.1 The Gift of the Magi

The Gift of the Magi is one of the best-known American short stories,

celebrated by American short-story writer - William Sydney Porter, who wrote it under the pseudonym O Henry and was published in 1906 in a collection of his

short stories, The Four Million Like The Furnished Room, and The Ransom of Red Chief, The Gift of the Magi also bears simple yet effective use of

paradoxical coincidences to produce ironic endings The story contains many of the elements for which O Henry is widely known, including poor, working-class characters, a humorous tone, realistic detail, and a surprise ending A major reason given for its enduring appeal is its affirmation of unselfish love Such love, the story and its title suggest, is like the gifts given by the wise men, called magi, who brought gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the newborn Jesus

Written between 1905 and 1906, the story is close enough to everybody’s heart It is of universal significance of love and passion The action takes place

in the New York City, in a very unassuming flat, a drab, gray, and decaying flat The occasion is the festive Christmas Eve

The story talks about a poor couple They live in a shabby flat but they love each other The wife is Della Dillingham Young And the husband is Jim Della's beautiful, brown, knee-length hair is one of the two great treasures of the poor couple The other is Jim's gold watch

With her new funds, only $1.87, Della is able to find Jim the perfect present: an elegant platinum watch chain for his watch It is $21, and she buys it Jim arrives at 7pm to find Della waiting by the door and stares fixedly at her, not able to understand that Della's hair is gone After a little while, Jim gives Della her present, explaining that his reaction will make sense when she opens it Della opens it and cries out in joy, only to burst into tears immediately afterward Jim has given her the set of fancy combs she's wanted for ages, only now she has no hair for them Jim nurses Della out of her sobs Once she's recovered she gives Jim his present, holding out the watch chain Jim smile He sold his watch to buy Della's combs, he explains He recommends they put away their presents and have dinner As they do so, the narrator brings the story to a close by pronouncing that Della and Jim are the wisest of everyone who gives gifts They are the magi

The story consists of three characters: Della, Jim and Madame Softronie

Della is Jim’s wife She is loving, warm, selfless She loves Jim so much Jim's

job is not so great He's the only breadwinner for the Dillingham Young family (that is, him and Della), and it seems he works long hours, but his salary is low

He and Della are struggling just to pay the expenses of their small flat He

looked thin and very serious Just like Della, Jim gives up his most precious

possession to find a perfect gift for the person he loves

Madame Softronie, the only character in the story other than the Young, Madame Softronie is the owner of a hair shop who bought Della’s hair You could say she represents "the cold, uncaring world" which exists outside the haven of love Della and Jim have built for themselves She also represents a very different way of valuing things – purely for the money they fetch

1.4.3.2 The Last Leaf

"The Last Leaf" is a short story by O Henry published in 1907 in his collection The Trimmed Lamp and Other Stories Set in Greenwich Village, it depicts characters and themes typical of O Henry's works It is among the 381 short stories William Sydney Porter produced in New York City

The story takes place in New York in the area called Greenwich in the 1890s.It is really in only one place in this short story, and it is inside Sue and Johnsy's house in a small part of the city west of Washington square “The Last Leaf” is not written in details, the text is simple and the sentences are short

The setting is Greenwich Village, New York, 1905 Johnsy, Sue and Behrman are three of the impoverished artists One autumn, Johnsy suffers from Pneumonia that has killed so many people at that time Johnsy is in despair that her life depends on the ivy leaves outside the window She believes that the moment the last leaf falls she will die Her friend, Sue doesn’t know what to do except worrying and constant nursing Then on a cold, rainy, windy night, when

it is quite apparent that the last leaf is “dying”, Old Behrman, who regards himself as “special mastiff-in-waiting to protect the two young artists”, defies the cold, wet night to paint a leaf on the outdoor vine to restore the dying Johnsy's will to live The doctor tells Sue that Mr Behrman died of pneumonia during the night "They found his body in your alley, next to a ladder and a lantern, and a palette of green and yellow paints Heaven knows what he was doing out there." The last leaf, which raises Johnsy’s hope of living when she sees it the next morning, is Behrman’s masterpiece that eluded him in life

The characters are Sue, Johnsy and Behrman All three is artist and they live in the same old brick house Sue is from the State of Maine and draw pictures for magazines Johnsy is from California and she wants to paint a picture of the Bay of Naples The two girls live together Behrman is an older man and lives downstairs the two girls

In the short story by O Henry "The Last Leaf" Johnsy is a slight young woman who is petite She is adventurous and daring or she would not have moved to the artistic community of Greenwich Village, New York She is living

in a community of artists and, she is an artist herself Sue is an artist, who lives with Johnsy, her roommate She is young, and part of the "artist" scene of Greenwich Village, of which O Henry writes about in a rather mocking tone She is independent-minded She is a caring individual, waiting on Johnsy and

hoping for her recovery She is friendly to the burly Behrman downstairs, even though he makes fun of her and Johnsy for their silly feminine ways Behrman is

a person who wants others to be happy Although when for the first time Sue told him about Jhonsy's fantasies about the leaf, he reacted very badly But to give Johnsy moral support which can be provided to her by preventing the last leaf from falling, he risked his life and painted a picture of the last leaf on the opposite wall in the terrible cold weather He is a down to earth person and agem in millions

1.4.3.3 The Furnished Room

The Furnished Room, short story by O Henry, published serially in 1904 and then collected in The Four Million (1906)

The setting of this story is in New York City The story is about a young man who entered a district in which a goodly number of houses catered to transients He inquired in vain at eleven different houses On his twelfth try, he finally found an empty room The young man was searching for a young lady named Miss Eloise Vashner, who he thought would be singing on the stage He asked the housekeeper if Miss Vashner had ever lodged in her house He explained that she was a slender girl of medium height She had reddish gold hair and a mole near her left eyebrow After a futile search for his missing girlfriend, commits suicide in his rented room, not knowing that it is the same room in which his girlfriend had killed herself one week earlier

There are three characters in the story, the young man, Mrs Purdy and Mrs McCool The young man is paying guests Mrs Purdy and Mrs McCool are owners of house They knew the girl who the young man is searching for However, the do not tell to him because she died This is opened in the end of the story

In this chapter, researcher presented the overview about American society and American literature in O Henry’s time, O Henry’s career and his stories

“The Gift of the Magi”, “The Last Leaf” and “The Furnished Room” The next chapter, an analysis on the social reality’s reflection through O Henry’s social ideas and social problem in the three stories will be shown

CHAPTER 2 THE SOCIAL REALITY’S REFLECTION IN O HENRY’S SELECTED

SHORT STORIES

In chapter 2, the researcher tends to do an analysis on the reflection of

social reality in three O Henry’s selected short stories “The Gift of the Magi”

“The Last Leaf” and “The Furnished Room” The social reality’s reflection will

be presented in three aspects: the New York City in progress, fate of urban resident in O Henry stories and the love between everyone

2.1 The New York City in progress in O Henry’s selected short stories

Livelihood in O Henry’s short stories is extremely rich He does not focus on an object as the majority of the novelists His short stories are the result

of the story, the man that he is interested in and worthy to record That a person likes him, he had footprints in countless lands, there are too much stories However, the story space in O Henry consists of three main points: Texas, Central America and New York However, Texas and Central America accounted for only a small part in the literary career of O Henry There are about 80 of the nearly 600 comic books that he wrote, and he wrote most of the New York

New York, the nation's largest city, located in the eastern coast, has been completely transformed over the period of writer Washington Irving It is here,

at the beginning of the twentieth century, there has been the development of a movement called the "New Yorkers" that W Irving described in the book of the Knickerbocker's History of New York New York in O Henry’s time was seen

as “a great international city”

O Henry had a special affection for New York His feeling before the mystery of this city and a desire to learn it has risen the value of his works O Henry was very hard to get to know New York, his heart always flutter before the novelty of it all He paid attention to anything happening, tried to find the relationship between the curling flows of the relentless of life in New York In the three selected stories, O Henry draws a vivid picture of New York with its streets and tenements and flats

2.1.1 New York’s streets

In the 19th century, the New York City transformed by waves of immigration and the strong development A future project development named

"Commissioners' Plan of 1811" has expanded the street system of the city which covered Manhattan The street in this city was not divided by class All streets are numbered unanimously and do not have a road named with the name of someone The road system here absolutely is no roundabout, down five, seven and no down boulevards sumptuous splendor O Henry once said that he wanted

to live on New York streets in all his life The streets as well as the quarters were described in detail and vivid in his stories O Henry brought the characteristic of New York’s street into his short stories

As in the story “The Last Leaf” published in 1907 It is one of 81 short stories which were published in New York The setting is in Greenwich Village

in the West City of Washington Square At the beginning of the story, O Henry has described about the streets which seem to be typical in New York City

In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy and broken themselves into small strips called “places” These

“places” make strange angles and curves One Street crosses itself a time

or two An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street

(The Last Leaf in O Henry - 100 selected stories, p.178)

The winding road in the story is the result of the expansion and development of New York City Only in a small country, the streets have run crazy It is the evidence to the non-systematic construction in New York This has led to that county was divided into small areas and those areas acre in strange angles and curves

These roads run zigzag which made newcomers feel it difficult to move

Suppose a collector with a bill for paints, paper and canvas should,

in traversing this route, suddenly meet himself coming back, without a cent having been paid on account!

(The Last Leaf in O Henry - 100 selected stories, p.178)

The streets is also described as narrow streets with full of moss Moreover, the streets interlace each other as chessboard

That was in May In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly, smiting his victims by scores, but his feet trod slowly through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown "places."

(The Last Leaf, p179.)

In addition, in the story “The Last Leaf”, there is a specific characteristic

of streets in New York City This is all streets are numbered These streets are not named with name of someone At the beginning of the story, we met the image of these streets

So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a “colony”

(The Last Leaf, p.178)

“Sixth Avenue” is one of the basic particular of New York’s streets It is not the name of anyone It is signed by number For another example in the story

One was from Maine; the other from California They met at the table d’hôtel

of an Eighth Street “Delmonico’s”

(The Last Leaf in O Henry - 100 selected stories, p.178)

Two young girls, Sue and Johnsy were two strange persons coming from two different countries However, they met and then they lived together in a boarding house The place they met just the street named Eighth Street

The road or the corner in O Henry short stories was showed really and clearly It was created by meticulously observant and life experience of O Henry He has traveled extensively and life had many ups and downs These streets are also places where he lived and wrote his works

2.1.2 Tenement and flat

The arrival of so many new immigrants made the appearance of the city change quickly, especially in New York Urban leader planned to build housing, parks and public buildings New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art was only the largest and best known of many great museums taking shape in the late nineteenth century

Wealthy residents of cities were the principal force behind the creation of the great public building and at times even parks As their own material and social aspiration grew, they wanted the public life to the city to provide them with amenities to match expectations As both the size and the aspirations of the great cities increased, urban leaders launched monumental projects to remake the way their city looked

Many of the richest urban residents lived in palatial mansions in the heart

of the city and created lavish “fashionable districts”- Fourth Avenue in New York City, Back Bay in Boston and many other New Yorkers of moderate means settled in new suburbs on the northern fingers of Manhattan and commuted downtown by trolley or river boat

Most urban residents, however, could not afford either to own a house in the city or to move the suburbs Instead, they stayed in the city centers and rented Because demand was so high and space so scare, they had little bargaining power in the process Landlords tried to squeeze as many rent-paying residents as possible into the smallest available space And in New York, as in many other cities, more than a million people lived in tenements Tenements were incredibly crowded with three, four and sometimes many more people crammed into each small room

All the reality was recorded detailed by O Henry With a miracle creation, he turned the most ordinary events, especially the apartments, the building of immigrants into the uniqueness of his works

Firstly, this is flat Flat dwellers are of one type that O Henry portrayed extensively in his stories He appears to want to show the world how this half of the world lives and generally how this half is cheated out of decent, desirable living

As in the story “The Gift of the Magi”, O Henry described the home where Della and Jim live:

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the second, let’s take a look at the home, a furnished flat at $8 per week

It did not exactly beggar description but it certainly had that word on the look-out for the mendicancy squad

(The Gift of the Magi in O Henry- 100 selected stories, p.1)

Living between the city which is growing and becoming more and more modern in New York City, the young couple lived in a very unassuming flat; drab, gray and decaying flat

All things create a dark and uncomfortable space “There was a pier glass between the windows of the room Perhaps you have seen a pier glass in a $8 flat” (The Gift of the Magi in O Henry - 100 selected stories, p.2)

As in the story “The Last Leaf”, O Henry has described the tenement as:

So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a “colony”

(The Last Leaf in O Henry - 100 selected stories, p 178)

The Dutch attics are remnants of development projects "Commissioners' Plan of 1811" And with a low rents, poor artists have come here and lived together in that houses

O Henry uses tenement types to uncover the sordid living conditions that prevailed in a large portion of New York, and to denounce the owners of tenements who were so unconcerned about their tenants The stories containing tenement dwellers as characters convince the reader that O Henry know that the conditions of life there are the direct antithesis of all we are costumed to think of

as normal in society where people are constantly coming and going, where they

live at best but a few months in a given place, where no one knew anyone else in his own house but to say nothing of his own block, where there are no groups of any sort where all of these conditions exist, it is obvious that they can be no community tradition or common definition of situations, no place opinion, and

no informal social control The tenement house world carefully displayed in O Henry’s short stories is a world of political indifference, of laxity of conventional standards, and of personal and social disorganization

A terrible picture of the living conditions and of the people who occupy furnished room is given in the story “The Furnished Room” Here a young man applied at the door of a brick tenement house for a room Its sordid atmosphere, the odor of dust and decaying food, the open curiosity and prying of the inmates, all conjure up a terrible world picture that is an indictment of housing condition

in New York at that time The Furnished Room opens with a description of the transient life of the dwellers of the red brick district of the lower west side of Manhattan

O Henry detail described about the room which the young man would rent Firstly, this is the stair of the boarding house:

"I have the third floor back, vacant since a week back Should you wish to look at it?"

The young man followed her up the stairs A faint light from no particular source mitigated the shadows of the halls They trod noiselessly upon a stair carpet that its own loom would have forsworn It seemed to have become vegetable; to have degenerated in that rank, sunless air to lush lichen or spreading moss that grew in patches to the staircase and was viscid under the foot like organic matter At each turn of the stairs were vacant niches in the wall Perhaps plants had once been set within them If

so they had died in that foul and tainted air It may be that statues of the saints had stood there, but it was not difficult to conceive that imps and devils had dragged them forth in the darkness and down to the unholy depths of some furnished pit below

(The Furnished room, p 75)

The stair is very old with full of fetid and wet The things which were decorated for stair were deformed They lost initial shape All things seemed to

lose vitality There is only to have “a faint light from no particular source mitigated the shadows of the halls”

In addition, the furnishing of the room was the unusual decayed furniture

It seemed to be very obsolete and uncomfortable The room welcomes the new guest with a friendlessness and affected manner

The furnished room received its latest guest with a first glow of pseudo–hospitality, a hectic, haggard, perfunctory welcome like the specious smile of a demirep

Although the room is full of comforts, all these things are old and decayed Most of them are cheap things

The sophistical comfort came in reflected gleams from the decayed furniture, the ragged brocade upholstery of a couch and two chairs, a foot– wide cheap pier glass between the two windows, from one or two gilt picture frames and a brass bedstead in a corner

(The Furnished Room, p 76)

Moreover, the room was rented by many people before They had set

many traces in the story “Upon the gay–papered wall were those pictures that pursue the homeless one from house to house.”

In this story, O Henry has used most of the vocabularies which are simple and easy to understand But it’s obvious that the author also employs many complicated and abstract words, especially the adjectives, in order to create the complex atmosphere in the story For example, when the author describes the

room which the young man rents, large amount of adjectives like “faint, sunless, viscid, unholy, rank, foul and tainted, haggard, perfunctory, sophistical, ragged, gilt, gay-papered, desolate, musty, dank, cold, etc” are used They can bring

visual imaginary and aid the description of the room and the things in it

In another story “The Last Leaf”, the story depicts life as it was lived by Sue and Johnsy in a furnished room at the top of squatty, the story brick building which was covered by an old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots:

At the top of a squatty, three-story brick Sue and Johnsy had their studio "Johnsy" was familiar for Joanna One was from Maine; the other from California They had met at the table d'hôte of an Eighth Street

"Delmonico's," and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial that the joint studio resulted

(The Last Leaf, p 178-179)

The poor picture about the house for tenants is made more clearly through the following passage:

Sue look solicitously out of the window What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away An old, old ivy vine, gnarled and decayed at the roots, climbed half way up the brick wall The cold breath of autumn had stricken its leaves from the vine until its skeleton branches clung, almost bare, to the crumbling bricks

(The Last Leaf, p.180)

Everything seemed to be lifeless From yard from old ivy vine, all things evoked a desolate picture This space created a dull picture and the reality of the poor immigrants were presented more clearly

O Henry described the furnished rooms of New York as an example of the social conditions It has been previously stated that this author was familiar with the living conditions in the crowded, depressive, soot-blackened brick buildings that housed roomers who could not afford to pay for a decent place to live No one railed against these conditions more loudly that did O Henry through the medium of his short stories

2.2 The contrast living condition in O Henry’s selected short stories

2.2.1 Residential component in New York in late 19 th century- early 20 th

century

As a result of urbanization, the late nineteenth century became an age of unprecedented geographic mobility, as Americans left the declining agricultural regions of the East at a dramatic rate Some who left were moving to the newly developing farmlands of the West But many were moving to the cities of the East and the Midwest

Among those leaving rural America for industrial cities in the late nineteenth century were young rural women, for whom opportunities in the farm economy were limited Hundreds of thousands of women moved to the cities, therefore, in search of work and community

As in the story “The Last Leaf”, two young girls, Sue and Johnsy left her home to come to New York to search for a new life and to probably have chance

to fulfill their dream Or in the story “The Furnished room”, the young man also came to New York to find his girlfriend who disappeared home to go to this city

By the end of the 19th century, there were substantial African American communities in over thirty cities – many of them in the south, but some (New York City, Chicago, Washington, etc.) in the North or in border state

At that time, New York is gathered by a lot of American artists They come here from all parts of the country And they found youthful atmosphere, magical streets and magnificent buildings, and especially the spirit of liberty and not carving competition as in the South or in the West The writer Frank Norris commented, “One of the greatest desires of the young writer is to come to New York” They seemed fascinated by the majestic splendor as well as its mysterious looks This overwhelmed feeling is described with many different forms, but there were similarities as they expressed that they were New Yorkers

The short story “The Last Leaf” has presented this clearly:

So, to quaint old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables and Dutch attics and low rents Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a "colony."

(The Last Leaf, p 178)

Artists came to New York to find job and a new life They met, rented a common house and bought some material for painting to create a “colony”

Three main characters in this story, Sue, Johnsy and Old Behrman also were immigrants They came from different regions But they were poor artist and lived in the same roof with low rent price