Introduction to Literature

This posting was my assignment when I was 7^th semester in English Education Department of Tarbiyah and Teaching Science of UIN Alauddin Makassar. The Furnished Room was very memorable for me so I am going to share you what I got from that story :)

 

THE FURNISHED ROOM

A.   Writer Profile

O. Henry was the pseudonym of the American writer William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910). He was born in Greenboro, North Carolina, where he lived nearly half of his life. His father, Algernon Sidney Porter, was a physician. When William was three, his mother died, and he was raised by his parental grandmother and paternal aunt. William was an avid reader, but at the age of fifteen he left school, and then worked in a drug store and a ranch. After moving in 1882 to Texas, he worked on a ranch in LaSalle County for two years. In 1887 he married Athol Estes Roach; they had one daughter and one son. In 1896, while he was employed as the teller of an Austin bank, a shortage in the cash accounts was attributed to him, and he was sentenced to a term in jail. It was during his imprisonment that he assumed the name of O. Henry and began work in earnest as a writer of short stories.

Upon his release he went to New York, living there until he died of a wasting disease at the age of 43 in 1910. Within 14 years, the success of his stories was so great that he was contributing one every week to the "World" and many more to the leading magazines of the country. He wrote over 270 stories, but not one novel.

B.   Abreviation of The Furnished Room

The tragedy short story “The Furnished Room” is about a young man who commits suicide in a room he rents. He has searched for his sweetheart for five months, with a hope that he can find her in the house he lives. But for the purpose of making profit, the landlady doesn’t tell him the truth that his girlfriend kills herself in the same room a week ago. At the end the young man dies in despair.

C.   The Furnished Room Analysis

a.     Plot

§  This is a story about a young man’s search for his sweetheart in a large city. His subsequent suicide after not being able to find her. He dies without ever knowing that his sweetheart had also committed suicide in the same room only a week earlier.

§  Exposition: The story begins with a young man renting a room.

§  Conflict: The young man experiences a supernatural encounter.

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

§  The story ends with the two housekeepers talking about the girl, whom the young man was searching for, who died in the room.

b.    Setting

§  At a city

§  The worn and bruised furnished room

§  A neighborhood bar

c.     Characterization

§  Young Man

Roles                             :  Major character/protagonist

Personality                     :  Hopeless, lonely and loyal

Motivation                    :  Love

Physical characteristik    : dark or red hair and pale (irish-american)

§  Bartender

Roles                             :  Minor character

Personality                     :  Friendly and sympathy

Motivation                    :  Love

Physical characteristik    : Dark or red hair and pale

§  Mrs. Purdy

Roles                             :  Minor character/antagonist

Personality                     :  Liar and egois

Motivation                    :  Greed and fear of failure

Physical characteristik    : Red (natural) and dark hair, pale white skin, green or blue eyes (ireland-born)

§  Mrs. McCool

Roles                             :  Supporting character

Personality                     :  Egois

Motivation                    :  Greed

Physical characteristik    : Red (natural) and dark hair, pale white skin, green or blue eyes (ireland-born)

d.    Major theme of The Furnished Room

The theme is the struggles and uncertainties that young people face in search of love. This story is really a tragedy and “irony of fate”.

e.     Symbol

The writer represented the poor condition of the room as cruelty of the people in general by using symbol “the furnished room received its latest guest with a first glow of pseudo-hospitality, a hectic, haggard, perfunctory welcome.”

f.     Point of View

§  Limited omniscient (3rd person )

§  The story is seen through outside observer (the author is not part of the story – not one of the characters)

D.  Conclusion

This is perhaps the bleakest of O. Henry's best-known stories. Although the basic ironic plot can be summarized in a sentence—a young man commits suicide in the same room where a young woman for whom he has vainly searched killed herself—it is the musty atmosphere of the room and the suggestion that every place bears the traces of the lives that have inhabited it that makes the story so interesting.