Give a brief analysis on the typical writing styles of O' Henry.

Give a brief analysis on the typical writing styles of O’ Henry.

Ans.

Introduction: O’ Henry (William Sidney Porter) is called ‘the father of modern American short stories’ and is known as ‘encyclopedia of American humour in the realm of world literature. His novels have been published repeatedly in the world, and there are numerous readers. O’ Henry created a total of 300 short stories. His famous novels, such as The Cop and the Anthem. The Furnished Room. The Gift of the Magi, and The Last Leaf, earned him a great reputation in the world. It is no doubt that O’ Henry make a significant contribution to the world literature. O’ Henry’s typical writing styles are generally branded with such features as humorous language, surprising endings and tearful smile.

The typical writing styles of O’ Henry

1. The humorous language: The languages in O’ Henry’s novels are rich and colourful, such as slang, irony, metaphor, metonymy, exaggeration, paronomasia and so on. Therefore, his stories are usually amusing and humorous.

In The Cop and the Anthem, humorous languages can be easily found. For example,

“Soapy walked past the policeman sadly. He seemed doomed to liberty.” As we know, the phrase “be doomed to” is usually followed by negative words like failure, death, frustration, destruction, etc., while liberty is a positive word, meaning freedom and happiness. Therefore, it is very strange and funny to express “He seemed doomed to liberty”, because no one will consider liberty negative except the poor and homeless Soapy. However, the funny expression indicates the true thoughts of Soapy, because liberty means coldness, hunger, and death to him in the cold winter. So he wishes to be put into prison to spend the cold winter. O’ Henry shows us poor Soapy’s miserable life and abnormal belief in such strange and humorous languages.

“At a table he sat and consumed beefsteak, flapjacks, doughnuts, and pie.” Generally speaking, consume is a formal word, meaning eating or drinking eagerly and in a large amount. Instead of the ordinary word eat, O’ Henry uses the formal word consume to describe the miserable life of poor Soapy, and readers may laugh into tears while reading the humorous sentence.

2. Surprising endings: The most important feature of O’ Henry’s writing is the unexpected ending. The story usually begins in one direction and just when the reader thinks they can predict the ending, but finally it turns to a totally different direction. These surprising endings are always reasonable, even if the ending is sad.

In the beginning of The Gift of the Magi, the author tells us how precious the watch and the hair are to the poor young couple. In order to exchange Christmas gifts, the poor young couple are not hesitate to sell the most precious possessions of each. As a result, however, their two precious gifts they bought all became useless at the end of the story, while they got the most precious thing than any material object-love. It makes readers smile bitterly, and the more important is that we can feel the true unselfish love between the couple. This is the typical surprising ending of O’ Henry’s writing.

3. The tearful smile: Although some plots or ends of O’ Henry’s story are sad. there are usually some hopes and warm and true feelings in the story, which will make reader smile bitterly. This writing style is called tearful smile, and another typical writing styles of O’ Henry. In fact, tearful smile is the combination of comedy and tragedy.

The novel The Gift of the Magi shows fully the unique writing style of ‘tearful smile.

The couple in the story are very poor, and they only could afford the furnished flat at $8 per week, and all the money they have is ‘one dollar and eighty-seven cents’. The pennies are saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher. So readers can see that the life of them is very very hard, and can be regarded as a tragedy to some extent. However, the poor couple still live in the atmosphere of comedy, because they understand each other and love each other very much. They always think about the other and just try their best to make each other happier. At the end of the story, when the gifts all became useless, they are much moved and more happy because they get the most precious love from each other. After reading the story, readers usually don’t know whether they should smile or cry for the surprising end. Even though readers smile, may be it is a tearful smile; after all, the precious watch and the beautiful hair were gone. If readers are moved into tears, their tears may be the happy tears the true love of the couple was not gone! In a word, readers will not respond easily to the writing style to tearful smile, which is the magic of this style.

Conclusion: O’ Henry’s novel is characterized by vivid features. First of all, it is his humorous languages. He is a master of using paronomasia, metaphor, irony and so on to make the story more interesting and funny. Secondly, O’ Henry is skilled in conceiving the surprise but logical ending, which is known as the most famous feature of his writing. His stories are ingeniously conceived, and the result always changes suddenly and contrary to readers’ expectations. The unexpected endings can make people think more about the problems or situations that the story has revealed. Thirdly, most of O’ Henry’s novels seemed to be a comedy but meanwhile we can feel the deep sorrow. It is the style of ‘tearful smile’, which is the combination of comedy and tragedy. In O’ Henry’s stories, even though the ending is sad, there are usually some hopes and lights in it.

O’ Henry created some new writing styles, and they are imitated by numerous writers at home and abroad. People appreciate both his writing skills and his extraordinary ideas. For a long time, scholars and readers think highly of O’ Henry’s stories and writing styles. It is no doubt that O’ Henry makes a significant contribution to the world literature.