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.