The Buyer from Cactus City, by O. Henry

Audiobook

Movie (only the first scenes)

SUMMARY, by Glòria Torner

As many others stories by O. Henry, this one, The Buyer from Cactus City, is placed in Old South settings and New York, with an exposition of the life of ordinary people, using local colours and a realistic dialogue.
The story begins with a description of Cactus City (Texas), a rich town of twenty thousand people where the important building from Navarro & Platt is located. It’s a big store full of different things you can buy.
Every year, the older partner, Navarro, is going to New York to buy new merchandises for his emporium. But this year, as he feels a little tired, he wants to stay at home. Then, he orders his junior member, called John Platt, to make the trip to the Big City, (New York) to buy for his department store goods, especially, women’s suits.
Two weeks later, Platt, a wealthy and handsome Westerner, called ironically “Mister Texas”, a ranch man who has become a businessman, arrives in New York and enters the wholesale trade from Zizzbaum & Son, located in Broadway, to purchase some things for his business. Old Zizzbaum receives Platt, who is not impressed by New York. For that reason, Zizzbaum tells his son, Abey, to show him different places of Broadway that evening.
The next day, Zizzbaum, who wants to encourage his customer in sales, calls a sophisticated model from his trade, Helen Ashley, and commands her to try on different dresses in front of Platt. The model, aware of her duty part, agrees. Immediately, he finds her very beautiful. At that moment, the narrator says: “Platt felt for the first time the wonderful bright light of romance and glory descend upon him.”
Following with his plan, Zizzbaum arranges a dinner at 7:00 p.m. between John, the customer, and Helen, her employee. Now, John notices that Helen is his ideal. He is a young, rich business Westerner in love with a model. He imagines and tells her he will buy a beautiful car and a house, but she, disgustedly, replies she “has heard that before”.  For Helen, this evening is just following her working day and, frankly, she informs Platt she is only out with him to play this role, otherwise she’ll lose her job.
Platt insists and declares his love and gives her a diamond ring he has bought. Misunderstanding him, she reacts by getting angry because she believes he wants to abuse her. Immediately, she wants to leave the restaurant telling him to take her to the boarding house where she lives. There she slaps his face. But the persistent Westerner, who only wants about marrying her, increases his infatuation looking for an honest, sincere relationship and... just then a ring falls at her feet, but it isn’t the same ring: she sees that it is actually a wedding ring.
As many times in the stories of this author, the plot goes on in one direction, and just when the reader thinks they can predict the ending, finally, it turns to another different direction.
Surprise ending?  Does she change her mind because she realizes her mistake? Is there a change of reaction when she wants to know where is Cac, Carac, Caracas City?

QUESTIONS

-Do you think a mercenary marriage could be happy? And a marriage without romantic love?
-In your view, is the girl in the story, Helen, treated like an object by her boss? In your opinion, are some jobs (like models) offensive for people’s dignity?
-Helen doesn’t mind going away to live in an unknown place. What conditions you wouldn’t agree with for a marriage, or for a job?

VOCABULARY

obtain, be sneezed at, tan, shied, whirl, lay-down collar, wholesale, smuggled, crowbait, incidentally, oilily, evening gown, tulle, Don’t get fresh 

Witches' Loafes, by O. Henry

Video (an amateur film)

Summary and analysis

Analysis

Themes

SUMMARY, by Aurora Ledesma

The story is about Miss Martha. She is a single middle-aged lady who runs her own bakery. She has a good heart and she sympathizes with one of her customers, a man with a German accent, who only buys two loaves of stale bread, two or three times a week.

Miss Martha finds him attractive. The man, Blumberger, doesn’t seem rich in any way. His clothes are mended in some places. Despite that, he looks neat and is very polite. She is sure that he is an artist, and very poor, because once she saw a red and brown stain on his fingers.

Miss Martha imagines the artist sitting in the middle of his empty room, having the stale bread and water for his meals. She falls in love with the idea of helping him and maybe creating a relationship.

One day, Miss Martha changes her old apron for a blue-dotted silk one, and behind the counter, she looks more beautiful. She also prepares a mixture of seeds and borax for her complexion, to make her more attractive to him. Then the customer arrives for his stale bread, and while he is distracted by a fire-engine outside, Miss Martha puts some fresh butter inside the stale loaves and gives them to him without him noticing. She imagines how he will enjoy the surprise of finding the fresh butter after his painting work. 

A few hours later, the outside bell rings. Two men are standing there. One is a young man smoking a pipe, the other is her favourite customer. He is upset and very angry. He is shouting, accusing her of mocking him, and insults her with German words. 

Poor Miss Martha! She feels ashamed and guilty… She removes her apron replacing it with the old one and throws the mixture out of the window. The romantic bubble has burst.

Some reflections

Some people have a tendency to make assumptions based on appearances, and there is a danger of acting on those assumptions without fully understanding a person’s situation. Miss Martha’s sympathetic heart and her desire to help the artist are admirable, but her actions are wrong and hurtful. 

The story’s title “Witches’ loaves” gives the association between women and evil enchantment. Perhaps the title suggests that Martha has attempted to “bewitch” Blumberger with butter in order to try to win him as her husband.

QUESTIONS
How can you recognize a genius?
Are pictures an exact representation of reality? (Think about Canaletto and his Venetian pictures, or about Stubbs and his running horses.)

Do you believe in first impressions? When, or how, can you decide you know a person? Imagine you go to a blind date and you meet someone new: When and why do you decide to go on with the meeting, or to stop it?

On your view, what are the essencial qualities a shopkeeper must have?

Why being single was a shame (mostly for a woman) in older times?

 

VOCABULARY

sympathetic, darned, stale, garret, chops, showcase, Sally Luns, quince, complexion, nickel, dairyman, fluttering, edibles, dwelt, easel, viciously

  

A Cup of Tea, by Katherine Mansfield

SUMMARY, by Aurora Ledesma

The story was written in January 1922 in the space of just 4–5 hours, and was published in a popular magazine, the “Story-Teller”, in May of the same year.

Rosemary was a wealthy woman, who had been married for two years to a very rich man, Philip Fell, who adored his family. Though she was not very pretty, she made up for it as she lived in extreme style and fashion. She always enjoyed organizing parties for important people and artists. She liked shopping in a perfect florist’s in Regent Street and also loved collecting antiques.

One rainy winter afternoon, after leaving an antique shop, Rosemary felt a bit upset, because she had not been able to buy an exquisite little box.  Suddenly a poor young girl came up to her and asked for the price of a cup of tea. Rosemary thought of doing something generous, like in the novels of Dostoevsky, and invited her to her house. Rosemary wanted to show that those nice things that happened in novels and fairy tales, about generous rich people, happened in real life also. At the beginning, the girl didn’t believe Rosemary, even suspected that the lady might hand her over to the police, but at last Rosemary took her home.

When they arrived at Rosemary’s house, she took the girl up to her bedroom and made her sit near the fire on a comfortable chair. Rosemary even had to help her take off her coat and hat, because she was very weak, but threw them on the floor. The poor girl cried and complained that life was too hard and that she was so tired of living. Then Rosemary consoled her and asked her servant to bring some food and tea.

When she was going to begin asking the girl about her life, her husband Philip came in. He was astonished to see the girl in his wife’s room, and he asked her to go to the library, where he tried to tell her that she couldn’t have a stranger in the house. Facing a refusal, he used the old jealousy trick and he praised the girl’s beauty. So Rosemary went out of the library, took three pounds, gave them to the girl and sent her away.

Afterwards, Rosemary dressed up, put on some makeup and tried to attract the attention of her husband. At the end, Rosemary didn’t know if she was pretty enough for him, and she wasn’t sure if Philip loved her either.

 

Some Reflections

In this story we can find some topical themes that the writer repeats in many other stories: The prominence of women, the social classes, the oppression of the poor by the rich, the materialism of the main characters etc. But in “A Cup of Tea” we also find the appearance in contrast to reality. Rosemary on the surface seems kind by taking care of the girl. However, her intentions are something else. She wants to receive the admiration of her “friends”. The reality of her intentions is full of hypocrisy. She helps the girl for her own interest.
Rosemary is also a prototype of jealousy and insecurity. When Philips praises the girl’s beauty, she forgets her good intentions and sends the girl away.

QUESTIONS

-How can you explain the differences between beautiful and pretty? Can you give some examples?
-The protagonist says “I hate lilac”. And the attendant “put the lilac out of sight”. So strong of the power of money? Can you give some more curious examples?
-Remember the seller in the “antique shop”: can you give some tips as to how to be a very good shopkeeper?
-Why would / wouldn’t you buy second hand things?
-What do you think of philanthropy? Do you think it’s a way to help poor people, or you think it’s useless for the poor and hypocrisy for the donor?
-Are all the women sisters (in their fight for their rights)?
-Are rich people more natural than poor people? Do you think very rich people belong to another species? Is it easy to recognize them?
-“If people wanted helping, they must respond a little”. How true is this sentence? Must you always accept charity?
-Is being very formal a feature of rich people, like when Philip says “Oh, what’s happened? Previous engagement?”
 

VOCABULARY

duck, beamed, cherub, plied, vile, pick-up, bowled over

STORY WITH MARGIN NOTES

VIDEO ANALYSIS

SUMMARY AND ANALYSIS