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,
