Hey Dan

On O. Henry & His Short Stories

By Meng Lingmin

Supervised by Sun Suping

Majour: English

A Graduation Thesis Submitted in

Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the

Bachelor’s Degree of Arts in English to the Department

of English, Tangshan Teacher’s University

March 2004

欧亨利和他的短篇小说

孟令民

导师: 孙素平

专业: 英语

2004年3月

Acknowledgement
I really want to express my sincere indebtedness to Miss Sun Suping, a beloved Professor teaching in Tangshan University, and also my supervisor during the past unforgettable time I spent in this university. In the past several months ever since I began to write this thesis, she has offered every possible valuable help to me, which has turned out simply necessary for this work of mine. The present work couldn’t have been so successfully completed without her guidance and help, and unreserved dependence on me, all of which has always made me think I really owe her so much.
And also I surely would express my sincere thanks to all friends and workmates who have offered their helping hands whenever I am in need of help. I’m so grateful to their understanding of my improper appeal for their aid and their kindness towards the inconveniency I have often put to them.

Outline:

I. Introduction:

II. O. Henry, mouthpiece of the lower people:

1．Sympathy for the poor people and its origin;
2 . Reflecting the ordinary people and its origin;

III. The characteristics of his writing:

1．Surprising endings;
2．The vividness of details;
3．Coincidence;

IV. How the characteristics of his writing came into being

V. Conclusion:

O. Henry, an excellent writer of short stories in American literature.

Key words: mouthpiece of the lower people; characteristics of his writing; excellent writer of short stories

提纲:
I. 介绍

II. 欧亨利——下层人民的代言人。
1．同情穷苦百姓及其根源。
2．反映普通百姓生活及其根源。
III. 欧亨利的写作特点。
1. 出人意料的结尾。
2. 栩栩如生的情节。
3. 机缘巧合。
IV. 欧亨利的写作特点是如何形成的。
V. 欧亨利，美国文学史上杰出的短篇小说家。

关键词：下层人民的代言人; 写作特点；杰出的短篇小说家

I. Introduction:
O. Henry( William Sidney Porter) was a well-known American writer in the late nineteenth century. His writings are mostly in the form of short stories which are liked by the people all over the world.
In all his life, O. Henry wrote a large quantity of works, including “Cabbages and Kings”, a series of South American tales linked together by a loose plot construction; “The Four Million”, containing “The Gift of the Magi”, “The Skylight Room”, “The Cop and the Anthem”, “Spring Time and a la Carte” and “The Furnished Room”. “The Trimmed Lamp” gives the reading public a second collection of New York stories which contains “Two Thanks-giving Day Gentlemen”, “The Badge of Policeman O. Room”, “The Last Leaf”. He also wrote “Heart of the West”, “The Voice of the City”, “The Gentle Grater” and “Whirligigs”.
II. O. Henry, mouthpiece of the lower people
1. Sympathy for the poor people and its origin:
Many of his stories show sympathy for the lower people, such as “The Voice of the City” and “The Four Million”. These works sympathize with the young poor couple, with the down and outer, the drifter, or the alien, with his sympathy as the main feature of his works and is a projection of his personal loneliness. O. Henry’s original feeling for the poor people has a great deal to do with his own experience full of frustration.
O. Henry had a sad experience in his early years. His mother died when he was three years old, then he was brought up by his aunt, and virtually became an orphan. He worked in his uncle’s drugstore with little schooling. In 1887, O. Henry fell in love with a girl called Athol Estes, but her family didn’t agree to the marriage of the young couple. As a result, the two young people had no choice but to run away together. In 1897, O. Henry was charged with embezzlement of funds from the Austin, Texas bank. To avoid being arrested, he fled to New Orleans and Honduras. His wife became ill during his absence, so he had to come back secretly. One trouble followed another. He was heart-broken with grief for his wife’s death. Finally he was arrested and sentenced to five years in the Ohio Pentitentiary. In prison he thought of his own misery and humiliation, also the lower people’s lives around him. He was determined to write diligently with his pen as a mouthpiece of the poor people
In short, without O. Henry’s miserable experience, there would not be his deep sympathy for the lower people in his stories.
2. Reflecting the ordinary people and its origin:
In many of O. Henry’s short stories, he wrote about the lives of the ordinary people in New York, as well as in the other places. In “The Four Million”, O. Henry told the circumstances about frequenters of cafes and of boarding houses, white-collar men and women, art students, waiters, factory girls, cops and crooks etc. In “Heart of the West”, readers can meet stage drivers, judges, ranchers, miners, Spanish beauties, drifters and bandits. In “The Voice of the City”, he wrote about the down-and-outer, the drifters, the alien etc.
The above are only a few instances of his writings about ordinary people. Writing about the ordinary people is one of the distinguishing features of O. Henry’s stories. Why could he have a minute discription about the lives of the ordinary people? This is because he followed several different occupations and got in touch with all sorts of the lower people.
When he was eighteen years old, he went to Taxas, a land of ranchers and cowboys, flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, where he worked for two years. And later he worked as a clerk in the bank, where he was accused of embezzling money. After he was out of prison, he went off to Pittsburgh to start a new life. He worked as a writer for Pittsburgh Dispatch newspaper for a while and then drifted on to New York. In order to know New York and its inhabitants, he often wandered about had conversations with strangers on the streets or in the parks. He would often walk and talk at all hours of the night with children, poor people and even tramps and thieves, and invite them into a restaurant with him to drink coffee. He observed with an accurate eye and ear sights and sounds, nuances of materials on every aspect of the life in New York and the other places. So his stories vividly reflect these, the reading public are especially fond of his stories and feel his writing particularly cordial. This alone may account for why O. Henry became a famous writer in America.
III. The characteristics of his writing
1. Surprise ending:
The characteristics of O. Henry’s writings are popular with the people. His surprise ending is especially liked by readers and makes all readers think of it long after.
In “The Gift of the Magi”, O. Henry used the most famous trick ending. The story tells readers about how a poor young husband and wife buy each other a Christmas present, though they are both nearly penniless. They make up their minds to get a suitable Christmas gift for the other side for sincere love. The wife has her beautiful hair cut off and sells the treses to buy the husband a gold watch chain. He sells his watch to get a set of combs. When he and she finally know what is the matter, both of them feel very surprised and at the same time , they feel much disappointed, for the presents that they have bought have no use at this time.
The conception of this is really ingenious clever. When the story is over, the readers become intoxicated in the minute arrangement of the writer, and meanwhile are deeply moved by this young affectionate couple.
In “The Cop and the Anthem”, a vagrant tries to be arrested by the police and put into prison in order to get a shelter in the winter. He has a meal in a restaurant without paying, breaks the glass of the window, takes liberties with a young pretty woman and robs a man of his umbrella, etc. But all the evil deeds don’t get him arrested. At last Soapy is moved by the music coming from a small church. When he is determined to correct his errors and make a fresh start, he is caught by a policeman. The sad denouncement of the story surprises every reader. When Soapy does bad things and wants to be arrested, he can’t be arrested. When he doesn’t do bad things and wants to turn over a new leaf, he is done wrong to become a prisoner. As every reader can see, O. Henry shows ingenuity and affords food for thought in this story.
2. The vividness of details
O. Henry often observes the people and things around him, so he always gives a description of vivid details in his short stories. He does his best to make his portrayal exact and exquisite. The very style of the stories is absorbing. Such detailed description makes every reader indulge him in the plots of the story. The more people read such writings, the more they are interested in the characters and plots in the stories.
In “The Gift of Magi”, Della wants to buy Jim a Christmas present. She sells her beautiful hair because she has only one dollar and eighty-seven cents. As soon as she buys a platinum fob chain, she comes back home. When Della reaches home, O. Henry has a detailed description:
“When Della reached home, her intoxication gave away a little to prudence and reason. She got out her curling irons and light the gas and went to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear friends --- a mammoth task. Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror long, carefully and critically.
…Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment… and now she whispered ‘Please God, make him think I am still pretty…’”
Through the detailed description of this paragraph, O. Henry fully reveals Della’s cordial love towards Jim. It is for Jim that she cuts off her beautiful hair, but she thinks how he will like her when he sees she has lost her long hair. Therefore, she has been embellishing her own head for about forty minutes before the mirror. She wants to try her best to have Jim cheerful when he sees her. O. Henry meticulously plans the plot which makes readers sympathize with Della and her poor husband. At the same time, it makes every reader envy Jim for his having such a good wife.
3. Coincidence
Coincidence is another characteristic of O. Henry’s writing. In many of his stories, there are many coincidental plots. In “The Gift of Magi”, Della sells her long hair to get Jim a gold watch chain, and Jim sells his watch to buy Della a set of combs. How coincidental it is really!
IV. How the characteristics of his writing came into being
He was born September 11, 1862 in North Carolina, where he spent his childhood. His only formal education was received at the school of his Aunt Lina, where he developed a lifelong love of books. In his uncle's pharmacy, he became a licensed pharmacist and was also known for his sketches and cartoons of the townspeople of Greensboro.
At the age of twenty, Porter came to Texas primarily for health reasons, and worked on a sheep ranch and lived with the family of Richard M. Hall, whose family had close ties with the Porter family back in North Carolina. It was here that Porter gained a knowledge for ranch life that he later described in many of his short stories.
In 1884, Porter moved to Austin. For the next three years, where he roomed in the home of the Joseph Harrell family and held several jobs. It was during this time that Porter first used his pen name, O. Henry, said to be derived from his frequent calling of "Oh, 'Henry'" the family cat.
By 1887, Porter began working as a draftsman in the General Land Office, then headed by his old family friend, Richard Hall. In 1891 at the end of Hall's term at the Land Office, Porter resigned and became a teller with the First National Bank in Austin. After a few years, however, he left the bank and founded the Rolling Stone, an unsuccessful humor weekly. Starting in 1895 he wrote a column for the Houston Daily Post.
Meanwhile, Porter was accused of embezzling funds dating back to his employment at the First National Bank. Leaving his wife and young daughter in Austin, Porter fled to New Orleans, then to Honduras, but soon returned due to his wife's deteriorating health. She died soon afterward, and in early 1898 Porter was found guilty of the banking charges and sentenced to five years in an Ohio prison.
From this low point in Porter's life, he began a remarkable comeback. Three years and about a dozen short stories later, he emerged from prison as "O. Henry" to help shield his true identity. He moved to New York City, where over the next ten years before his death in 1910, he published over 300 stories and gained worldwide acclaim as America's favorite short story writer.
O. Henry wrote with realistic detail based on his first hand experiences both in Texas and in New York City. In 1907, he published many of his Texas stories in The Heart of the West, a volume that includes "The Reformation of Calliope," "The Caballero's Way," and "The Hiding of Black Bill." Another highly acclaimed Texas writer, J. Frank Dobie, later referred to O. Henry's "Last of the Troubadours" as "the best range story in American fiction."
Porter died on June 5, 1910 in New York City at the age of forty seven. An alcoholic, he died virtually penniless

V. Conclusion:
O. Henry, an excellent writer of short stories in American literature

Selected works at home for doing further research into problems of O. Henry
(美国文学史及选读) History and Anthology of American Literature. Beijing: Foreign Languages Teaching and Research Press, 1987: 66-77.
（世界文学名著选评） Jiangxi People’s Press, 1981: 177-186.
Guo Qun-ying 郭群英. A Survey of English and American Literature(英美文学简史). Hong Kong New Century Press, 1993: 397-398.
Zhang Ying-lun(张英伦) and others. 外国名作家传. Chinese Social Science Press, 1982: 478-483.
Selected works abroad
· THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF O. HENRY, 1945 (ed. by Bennett Cerf and Van H. Cartmell)
· THE POCKET BOOK OF O. HENRY, 1948 (ed. by Harry Hansen)
· COPS AND ROBBERS, 1948 (ed. by Ellery Queen)
· COMPLETE WORKS OF O HENRY, 1953 (2 vols.)
· O. HENRY WESTERNS, 1961 (ed. by Patrick Thornhill)
· THE STORIES OF O. HENRY, 1965 (ed.by Harry Hansen)
· FOUR MILLION & OTHER STORIES, 1976
· COLLECTED STORIES OF O. HENRY, 1986
· THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF O. HENRY, 1994