By Courier, by O. Henry

The Go-Between (a novel and two films)

Audio with text

You can find another another audio (slower) here

SUMMARY

In this story, a young man starts a communication with a young woman of his acquaintance through a boy who acts as a messenger (or perhaps a bit more than a messenger). The woman is sitting on a bench in the park. The man arrives, sees her and calls a boy who is nearby. He asks him to deliver a message to the woman and gives him a tip. The woman answers the man’s message using the same way. But the messenger conveys the messages using very different words to the ones he gets. Anyhow, man and woman understand what he says. But at the end, the man thinks that, for an unmistakable understanding of the communication, it’s necessary a written message.

QUESTIONS

Why did the author make the messenger change the message’s language? 

What do you know about the Greek myth of Hermes?

What channels of communication do you use and what do you use them for? Do you still send letters or postcards by standard mail?

According to your view, jealousy: is it something genetic, or social? How can you stop being jealous (if you believe it is a negative feeling)?

What do you know about the expression "don't kill the messenger"?

VOCABULARY
striding, tagged, countenance, moose, sake, plaid bicycle cap, song and dance, paramount,

pleas, conservatory, propinquity, soft-soap, beat the band, ski-bunk, bum, sport

Hearts and Hands, by O. Henry

BIOGRAPHY

Oliver Henry, usually written O. Henry, was the pseudonym of William Sidney Porter. He started to use different pseudonyms when wanted to publish his stories while he was in prison. And as he liked O. Henry the best, he kept using it ever after, and we always speak of him as O. Henry. He was born in 1862, so in the middle of the American Civil War or Secession War, between the slavers confederates secessionists and the Yankees abolitionists unionists. His birthday was on the 11th of September, so we have to suppose that if he had known what were to happen, he would have written a story about it, because he liked the surprising ironies of life. He was born in North Carolina, but he went to live in Texas where he graduated as a chemist (or pharmacist, as he was American, not British). He was then 19 years old. When he was 25, he eloped with his girlfriend. They married and they had two children, a boy who died soon after his birth, and, later, a girl, Margaret. When he was 29, he started to work in a bank, and only 3 years later he was accused of misappropriation. In order to avoid the trial and being found guilty, he run away to Honduras. There he started a friendship with a famous train robber. Also, there he coined the expression “banana republic” that appeared in his book Cabbages and Kings. But when he knew his wife couldn’t come to Honduras (as they had planned) because she was dying of tuberculosis, he went back to the USA. He had spent six months in Honduras. Back in the USA, he was found guilty of misappropriation and got a penalty of 5 years in prison, but he went out after 3 years because of his good behaviour. Then he moved to New York, the setting of most of his stories. He died when he was only 48 years old of cirrhosis: as you can imagine, he was a heavy drinker. While he lived in New York, he was a very prolific author because he wrote a story every week for different magazines. He was a popular author; his stories are witty, funny and with a surprising ending, but he wasn’t very praised by critics, because they thought he wasn’t deep enough. His most known short stories are The Gift of the Magi (where a very poor marriage try to buy presents each other in secret), The Ransom of Great Chief (where two bandits kidnap a boy, and the things doesn’t go as easily as they thought), The Last Leaf (where and old artist helps, in a very special way, to spirit another young artist who doesn’t want to fight for her own life), Hearts and Hands (where a prisoner and his guard travel by train and there they find an old acquaintance), etc.

SUMMARY

The story takes place on a train. An elegant young woman is sitting in a coach when two men get up to the train, go into her coach and sit down in front of her. One of the men is nice and handsome; the other is an unpleasant sulky man with a disagreeable appearance. They are tied together by a pair of handcuffs. The worldly woman immediately recognizes the nicer man and greets him with a feeling. He can only give her his left hand, because his right one is handcuffed to the nasty man; this man, however, tells the girl that’s what a marshal has to do when he takes a wrongdoer to the prison. All the same, the young woman and the nice man start a lively and happy conversation. After a while, the ruffled man says it’s cruel for a prisoner not to have time for smoking: since the morning he hasn’t had any; the nice man understands the request, and they both go out to enjoy some tobacco. The other passengers make some remarks about the curious pair.

QUESTIONS 

What is the relation between the title and the story?

What kind of criminal do you think you could sympathize with?

Do you think the art of conversation can be learned? What are the features of a good conversation? Why do / don't you like chatting? Tell us ways to start a conversation, ways to "break the ice".

VOCABULARY

influx, handcuffed, forestalled, pen, counterfeiting, butterfly days, 

Academic activity

Audiobook

Summary and analysis

Film adaptation (very free)

October and June, by O. Henry

SUMMARY, by J. Guiteras

The captain, who had kept his uniform worn out by time and service in a closet, was enchanted by the sweet and smiling lips of a woman.

He received a letter from this woman telling him that she would not marry him because of the age difference between them.

The captain, who was rich and handsome, did not resign himself to this refusal and took a train to see her so that she could reconsider.

She stood firm in her decision, arguing that within a few years one of them would want to be quiet at home and the other would be crazy about going out to parties.

The captain was sad because he had lost the battle and returned home.

The next day he reflected and came to the conclusion that Theo, the woman, was right, since one of them was 28 years old and the other was only 19 years old.

 

Reflection: I feel sorry for them because a younger person can always learn a lot from another one who is older and with experience and has a lot to teach to a youngster.

 

QUESTIONS

-Why was the age gap very important in the past, and now isn’t so?

-Do you think we’ll be able to overcome all the clichés? Are prejudices good or bad for daily life?

-In your opinion, what is the relation of the title with the story?

 

VOCABULARY

gloomily, rugged, squared, ‘Pon

BIOGRAPHY, by Begoña Devis

William Sydney Porter was born in North Carolina in 1862 and died in New York in 1910. He was a great writer known as O. Henry after a cat he lived with for a time. He is considered one of the masters of the short story. His admirable treatment of surprise narrative endings popularized in English the expression "an O. Henry ending".

He had an eventful life. His mother died when he was three, and he and his father moved to his paternal grandmother's house. As a child he was a good student, and a great reader. He graduated from his aunt's school, who continued teaching him until he was 15. He then began working in his uncle's pharmacy and finally graduated as a pharmacist.

In 1882 he went to Texas, hoping that a change of scenery would improve his persistent cough. There he worked there as a ranch hand, as a cook and as a nanny. When his health improved, he went to Austin, where he worked as a pharmacist and where he began writing short stories. He was popular in the social life in Austin for his storytelling and musical talent. At this time, his problems with alcohol abuse began. In 1887, he eloped with the young Athol Estes, daughter of a wealthy family. In 1888 they have a child, who died. In 1889, a new daughter, Margaret, was born.

In 1894, Porter founded a humorous weekly magazine called The Rolling Stone.  Then that magazine collapsed, and he moved to Houston, where he was a journalist at the Houston Post.

The most transcendental event occurred in 1895, when he was accused by the First National Bank of appropriating money that he had under his responsibility. On the eve of the trial he sailed for Honduras, where he lived for seven months, and where he wrote several stories, many of which appear in the book Cabbages and Kings, in which he coined the term «banana republic», phrase subsequently used to describe a small, unstable tropical nation in Latin America.

In 1897 he returned to Austin when he knew that his wife was dying, and after a few months he was arrested and convicted, spending three years in the Columbus (Ohio) prison. There he continued writing short stories to support his daughter. When he was released from prison, he changed his name to O. Henry and moved to New York, where he lived until his death.

In New York, the city the writer loved and the setting for many of his stories, O. Henry gained public recognition, but he had a deep problem with his alcoholism. Indeed, there is an anecdote that his most famous story, "The Gift of the Magi", was written under the pressure of a deadline, in just three hours and accompanied by a whole bottle of whiskey.

From December 1903 to January 1906, he wrote a story a week for the New York World, his most prolific period. He remarried in 1907 to his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Lindsey Colem, who left him in 1909.

O. Henry died on June 5, 1910 of cirrhosis of the liver. His funeral was held in New York and he was buried in Asheville, North Carolina. His daughter, Margaret Worth Porter, died in 1927 and was buried next to her father.

In the United States, the O. Henry Award for short stories, one of the most important in the world, was created in his memory. Among other writers, it has been awarded to William Faulkner, Dorothy Parker, Flannery O'Connor, John Updike, Truman Capote, Raymond Carver, Saul Bellow and Woody Allen.