This posting was my assignment when I was 7th
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.
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