Abstract

O Henry, whose original name is William Sydney Porter, is one of the most famous short-story writers in the world in the early 20th century and wins the title of “master of the short story”. His short stories, depicting American society of his time, are appreciated by many people in the world. His distinctive writing style can be seen as twist plot, vivid imaginations and the surprising ending. This paper is aimed to appreciate one of O Henry’s other representative works The Furnished Room.
The story is about a young man comes to New York to find his lover. 5 months later, he is tied and on the edge of breaking down. He rents a furnished room in the slum. In the room he smells “the strong, sweet odour of mignonette” which belongs to his lover. Then he asks the landlady who rented this room before him, but he doesn’t get the answer he wants. With deeply desperation, he turns the gas full on and commits suicide. At the end of the story, according to the conversation between the landlady and a woman, we learn that a girl with a mole on her left eyebrow which is the one the young man has been looking for killed herself in the same way and in the same room. There is no O Henry-style humor in this story, but the satire of the capitalist society and the sympathy to the underclass.
The main body of this paper consists of six chapters. Chapter one introduce O Henry briefly. Chapter two presents the theme of The Furnished Room. Chapter three investigates the clues of this short story. In chapter four, the description of the setting and characters is analyzed. Chapter five is about the surprising ending of The Furnished Room. Chapter six is the conclusion.

Key Words: O Henry, The Furnished Room, theme, clue, setting, characters, surprising ending

摘要

欧•亨利，原名威廉•西德尼•波特，是20世纪初期世界著名的短篇小说家之一，且赢得了“世界短篇小说大师”的称号。他的短篇小说描绘了他所处时代美国的社会百态，被世界上许多读者推崇。他的作品以曲折的情节、巧妙的艺术构思和出其不意的结尾著称。本文主要就其众多短篇小说中的一篇：《供家具的出租房》进行赏析。
故事讲述了一个年轻人为了寻找他的爱人而来到纽约，五个月后，他已处在崩溃的边缘。他在贫民区租了个带家具的出租房，在那里，他问到了他的爱人所特有的木樨花香。他兴奋的询问房东以前有谁租过他住的这个房间，但是他仍然没有得到他想要的答案。在深深的绝望中，他打开了煤气结束了自己的生命。在故事的结尾，通过女房东和一个女人的对话，我们才知道年轻人苦苦寻找的那个左眉毛有痣的女孩已经在同样的房间以同样的方式自杀了。在这篇小说中，没有欧亨•利式的幽默，有的只是对资本主义的讽刺和对下层人民的同情。
本文共分六个章节：第一章对欧•亨利作简短的介绍；第二章探讨小说《供家具出租的房间》的主题；第三章研究小说的线索；第四章分析小说中的场景和人物；第五章是关于出其不意的结尾在该小说中的体现；第六章总结。

关键词：欧•亨利，《供家具的出租房》，主题，线索，场景，人物，出其不意的结尾