The Pendulum, by O. Hernry

 

Audiobook

Text with images

SUMMARY, by Aurora Ledesma

This is the story of John Perkins and Katy, a couple who live in New York. After work, John Perkins gets out at the Eighty-First Street station in Manhattan and walks slowly towards his flat. On his way home, he is bored because he knows exactly how he is going to spend his evening.
He has been married to Katy for two years. Their life is a boring routine. It never changes. John returns home, where his wife, Katy, is waiting, and just as yesterday and the day before, she meets him at the door with a kiss which smells of cream and butter-scotch. He removes his coat and reads the evening paper. Then they sit down to dinner. It’s the same pot roast, salad and rhubarb and strawberry marmalade. After dinner, they listen to their neighbours doing the same things day after day: the fat man in the flat above starts his physical exercises, the couple who play in a vaudeville act begin to have delirium tremens, the flute player, the lady with champagne shoes and the Skye terrier…
Every night, despite Katy’s disapproval, at a quarter past eight John goes to McCloskey’s with his friends to play pool, and at ten or eleven, he would return. One evening when he comes home, he doesn’t find his wife. John is shocked by the disorder of their apartment: clothes, shoes and different belongings lying on the floor and over the chairs. She has left behind a note that she has gone to visit her sick mother. Feeling her absence, John regrets his treatment of her, and now he feels guilty. He is sorry because while he was playing pool with his friends, Katy was suffering from loneliness at home. He would take Katy out and let her have some fun when she came back.
Just then, the door opens and Katy walks in. She tells him that her mother was not seriously ill, and she had taken the train back. John Perkins looks at the clock. It is 8,15…

Some reflections

For John Perkins, the main character, life is boring. It’s all about routine, just like a pendulum with its predictable back-and-forth motion. John is also an indecisive person; this man sometimes changes his mind depending on the situation. When his routine is interrupted, John begins to question his life and his actions.

QUESTIONS

-Tell us about the possible interpretations of the title.
-Can you remember any instances (real or fictional)  of trying to be kind to other people and then, when you see the drawbacks of it, you back out?
-Is the pendulum (or the circle) an image of real life, or do you think real life is more like a line with a beginning and an ending?
-In our couple, who do you think is guiltier, the husband for not paying attention to his wife, or the wife for not going on her own account?

VOCABULARY

downtrodden, butter-scotch, four-in-hand, querulous, pool, wrapper, thrum, fling, dregs, roistering, curbed, bereft, double-dyed, dub, make it up, woo, depot

The Complete Life of John Hopkins, by O. Henry

Audiobook 

Presentation

SUMMARY

As it’s usual in O. Henry, he starts his writing with a philosophical deliberation. In our case, he reflects about the saying “No man has tasted the full flavour of life until he has known poverty, love, and war.” So we have to imagine that in our story, the author / narrator is going to demonstrate the truth of it, or at least, give an instance of it. How an ordinary man with a monotonous life can taste the full flavour of life?

John Hopkins was a very commonplace man. He had had the same tastes and the same habits for all his life. He dwelt in a normal flat with a ficus and a dog in an unobtrusive street and was married as most people. His wife was also an unimaginative woman. There wasn’t any surprise in the lives of these two people. One cannot expect anything that wasn’t monotony in their home.

Every weekday, when John Hopkins came from work, had dinner, made some trivial remarks about the day, told his wife some little change in his office or about the people there and then was quiet.

But today, he did something absolutely unusual: in the middle of a sentence, he suddenly decided to walk down to the corner to buy a cigar.

And now a series of extraordinary events took place. First, he forgot his money and couldn’t pay for the cigar, then he quarrelled with the tobacconist because the man didn’t sell on credit. Afterwards, a policeman arrived to where they were fighting and tried to arrest Hopkins, but he defended himself and run away. In his flight, he was rescued by a stranger in a car, who took him to his lady. The lady, however, wanted her cousin Walter Long, but, as the driver hadn’t been able to find him, he had brought John Hopkins instead. The lady needed a brave and strong man to throw out of her house somebody who had offended her; nevertheless, the offender, who perhaps was her husband, her brother or any family member, in a moment seized Hopkins, pinned him down and easily shoved him out of doors.

John Hopkins, once on the street, not at all confused, walked directly home. His wife greeted him with...

 

QUESTIONS

-What is your opinion about this saying: “No man has tasted the full flavour of life until he has known poverty, love and war”?

-Where are poverty, love and war in our story?

-What do you prefer: a routine life or an adventurous one? What is it better for our mental health?

-What are the benefits of a customary / everyday / trivial conversation?

-Somebody said: our troubles come of not being able to remain calmly at home all the time. What is your view about that sentence?

 

VOCABULARY

plummet, ostrich tips, mucilaginous, hornblende, grafted, joust, rebuses, took [spiritedly] to his hells, soak, winning, chowder, grouch at, scraper, kennels, check