Complete stylistic analysis
Born
William Sidney Porter, this master of short stories is much better
known under his pen name "O. Henry." He was born
September 11, 1862 in
North Carolina.
He has
become a symbol to represent a recognizable species of short story writing. He
wrote nearly three hundred stories. Most of O. Henry` s were translated
into foreign languages. His stories are very American in language. O.
Henry wrote with realistic detail based on his first hand experiences both in Texas and in New
York City. O. Henry uses o lot of stylistic devices. O.
Henry intentionally avoids sharp social problems. In his stories we find
inhabitants of big cities and ranches, highway outlaws as well as self-made
business tycoons come into wealth and power through freak of chance. And one of
the most popular and famous story is "The Skylight Room” and I would like
to analyse this story.
The
setting of the story through which we can understand about what write the
author. "The
Skylight Room" is a modern day fairy tale, set in the heart of the authors
favorite city, New York.
This heartwarming tale describes the dream come true romance of Miss Leeson, a
poor working girl in New York.
Miss Leeson is a young women who works as a freelance typist with big firms in
the city. Her income is, however, insufficient to get her decent lodgings, so
she is forced to rent what experienced house hunters call "The Skylight
Room". The bare room has a small cot, a wash stand and a dresser- all that
Miss Leeson can afford. On the floors below live the more affluent lodgers of
the sharp tongued and snobbish Mrs. Parker, Miss Leeson's landlady. Mr. Skidder
is a playwright, perpetually on the lookout for a muse. Miss Leeson fits the
bill, and the heroine of Mr. Skidder's next play becomes a short, happy-go-lucky
woman who has long auburn hair. Mr. Hoover, a fat, middle aged man, is not
above taking advantage of poor young girls, and the young Mr. Evans develops a
boyish infatuation toward this woman whose fanciesare forever skimming the
skies and the stars.
The
schoolteacher, Miss Longnecker, a beautiful woman with no time for fancies, and
the sports obsessed Miss Dorn are the other lodgers of Mrs. Parker's
establishment. Miss Leeson soon becomes popular with all the lodgers, despite
the fact that she is a poor outcast who has to live in "the skylight
room". On a balmy evening, when the lodgers are sitting on the steps
leading to the apartments, Miss Leeson points out Billy Jackson, the only star
she can see through the skylight in her room. Though Miss Longnecker disagrees
with her astronomical nomenclature and insists it is "Gamma", the
other lodgers think Billy Jackson is a better name for a star. For Miss Leeson,
the star is the only friend in a wide world whose only share comes to her in the
form of a patch of black darkness called "the skylight room". It is
not just a ball of gas and heat for her, it is a friend and confidante who
knows her distress and sorrows. A few days later, Miss Leeson's unflagging
cheerfulness finally starts to taper off, as she realizes that more
difficulties lie in store for her. And as the story reaches its culmination, we
find out exactly what the significance of "Billy Jackson" is in the
existence of the poor typist.
Miss Leeson is a young typist who rents "the skylight
room" because it is the only room she can afford. (This is the room shown
by the housekeeper.) It's a tiny room with a small iron cot. The room's only
redeeming quality is the skylight.
On summer nights, the roomers
gather on the front steps to pass the time and talk. Miss Leeson is very
popular due to her youth and charm. One of the older men becomes enamored with
Miss Leeson. During these summer evenings Miss Leeson tells everyone about one
of the stars she can see through the skylight. She has named the star Billy
Jackson. The school teacher, Miss Longnecker, corrects Miss Leeson announcing
the correct name of the star. Miss Leeson declines to be corrected and clings
to her name of the star.
Some
time passes and Miss Leeson falls on hard times since she can no longer find
employment. Our young friend, the one who can only afford the cheapest room, is
so destitute that she can't afford to eat. She grows weak and frail.
She encounters the man, the one who wants to marry her, on the stairs. He
proposes marriage. He lays before her rescue from her plight. If she would only
accept his proposal, she would be cared for (and fed). She remains true to
herself and declines his offer.
She is barely able to reach her room and
falls onto her cot, too tired even to undress. She looks up at her star. Even
in this weakened state, she can't bring herself to call her star by its correct
name as she recalls Miss Longnecker's correction. Her last act is to raise two
fingers to her lips in a kiss to her star, Billy Jackson.
Next day, having not seen Miss Leeson,
they force the door open and find her barely alive. The ambulance is called,
and the doctor arrives to attend to the sick girl. He carries her down the
stairs and takes her to the hospital.
Lexical
means:
In this story, the author used a lot of similes. They describe the setting and the actions of the story: Miss Leeson is
smiling in exactly the way the angels do.
Mr. Skidder is putting his feet up against the lambrequins and
disappearing in a cloud of smoke like an aerial cuttlefish. It makes Billy
Jackson look like the big diamond pin that Night fastens her kimono with. He
asked to marry him, and his fatness hovered above her like an avalanche. Mrs.
Parker crumpled as a stiff garment that slips down from a nail. The author also use the simile to describe the skylight room: Its
four bare walls seemed to close in upon you like the sides of a coffin.
Epithet used to portray the appearance of the characters: a tiny finger, said
the small star gazer, the faithfullest heart, her fragile body, got two thin
fingers to her lips, scalpel of his tongue.
O. Henry uses the personification, when Mrs. Longnecker speaks with star: You are millions of mile away and you won't even
twinkle once. But you kept where I could see you most of the time up there when
there wasn't anything else butdarkness to look at, didn't you? … Millions of
mile… Good-bye, Billy Jackson.
Metaphor used to narrate the magnificent and
the brightness of the story: let her heart melt away in the drip of cold
refusals, sunk in a pit of blackness, blue infinity.
Antonomasia: Mrs. Parker be Cicerone of yours and mounted a Stygian
stairway.
Syntactical means:
Enumaration is used to pay reader's
attention and underline the sentence: Capable young medico in his white
linen coat, ready, active, confident, with his smooth face half debonair, half
grim, danced up the steps. Mr. Hoover, who was forty-five, fat, flush and
foolish.
Through the analysis of the stylistic features
of O. Henry's short story “ The Skylight Room”, it can help reader more
understand the writing style of the author. The author uses the many stylistic
devices such as: epithet, metaphor, antonomasia and similes which make his
story more picturesque and produces the irony and the surprising effect of the
end of the story.
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"The Skylight Room" is a modern day fairy tale, set in the heart of the authors favorite city, New York. This heartwarming tale describes the dream come true romance of Miss Leeson, a poor working girl in New York. Miss Leeson is a young women who works as a freelance typist with big firms in the city. Her income is ,however, insufficient to get her decent lodgings, so she is forced to rent what experienced house hunters call "The Skylight Room"The bare room has a small cot, a wash stand and a dresser- all that Miss Leeson can afford. On the floors below live the more affluent lodgers of the sharp tongued and snobbish Mrs. Parker, Miss Leeson's landlady. Mr. Skidder is a playwright, perpetually on the lookout for a muse. Miss Leeson fits the bill, and the heroine of Mr. Skidder's next play becomes a short, happy-go-lucky woman who has long auburn hair. Mr. Hoover, a fat, middle aged man, is not above taking advantage of poor young girls, and the young Mr. Evans develops a boyish infatuation toward this woman whose fancies are forever skimming the skies and the stars..jpg)
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