This shift in the interest of the literary community was foreseen by Hyder E. Rollins, who complimented the writer's use of slang in his dialog in a 1914 article in the Sewanee Review, stating that "in his unexcelled mastery of slang our author was quite effective." Like fancy, ‘It is engendered in the eyes.’ There are three kinds of beauties—I was foreordained to be homiletic; I can never stick to a story." He was educated at his Aunt Lina's private school until he was fifteen, and in his teen years he worked at his uncle's pharmacy and became a licensed pharmacist. Outlaws like Jesse James and lawmen like Wyatt Earp became the heroes of legends, celebrated in the popular media of the day: popular songs and cheap, quickly published dime novels cranked out by anonymous writers. 1926. 1906: Rail travel is the fastest way to go across the country. Porter left First National Bank in the early 1890s to start a weekly humor magazine, the Rolling Stone. Sometimes he would finish a page and immediately wrinkle it into a ball and throw it on the floor. Hansen, Henry, "Foreword," in The Complete Works of O. Henry, Doubleday, 1953, pp. The American short-story writer William Sydney Porter (1862-1910), who wrote under the pseudonym O. Henry, pioneered in picturing the lives…, Saki An old negro had "a face that reminded me of Brutus." The reason it surprises readers is that Bob, for all his talking by the time this fact comes up, has said nothing that could let readers predict it. ." His personal life was less successful, plagued by drinking and debts. One of Saki's best-known stories, "Tobermory," is about a cat who develops the power of speech and ends up telling all of the secrets of the residents of a, O. Henry's colorful life story has fascinated generations of his fans. "Bill," my curiosity was up, "does your mind feel a blank when you sit there like that?" Your IP: 167.99.61.141 There is no rule 2. 209-211. This short story clearly points out that friendships can change over time. Porter's humor, Mrs. Woodrow suggested, was—like his formality of manner—a sort of protective armor worn by an extremely sensitive man. In 1907 he married his childhood sweetheart, Sarah Lindsay Coleman of Weaverville, North Carolina, but they separated a year later. In 1897, he went to jail for three years for stealing money. In O. Henry this combination stands out with particular relief owing to the fact that his basic orientation toward the anecdote with its unexpected and comically resolved ending is so extremely well-defined. Then he would write on, page after page, with hardly a pause, or he would sit silent and concentrate for half an hour at a stretch. Bob does have a diamond-laden watch, but there are certainly enough legitimate businesses in the West of the 1880s, such as mining, cattle, or lumber, that could make a man rich. This one seemed to be presented with a new treatment. However, the date of retrieval is often important. He suggests that they go to a place that he knows of nearby, where they can get out of the rain and have a long talk about old times. A home town, I should say, where few things out of the ordinary ever happen.’ It carries on an extensive trade in stoves and hollow ware with the West and South, and its flouring mills have a daily capacity of more than 2,000 barrels.". The enduring popularity of O. Henry has given him a degree of public recognition that is unusual for a writer. He is the American master of surprise ending. Furthermore the story does not explain that the person referred to as "the policeman" is actually the same Jimmy Wells that Bob has been describing to the policeman until the arresting officer calls him "Officer Wells.". ", In 1924, fourteen years after O. Henry's death, N. Bryllion Fagin suggested in Short Story Writing: An Art or a Trade? In this essay, he uses "After Twenty Years" to explore the schism between readers who love O. Henry's works and those who find them lacking. On a basic level, he has arrived at his appointment because he is a man of his word, and he promised twenty years earlier that he would be back. Today: New York, like any major city, has an abundance of stores and restaurants that are open throughout the night. Surprise, as a device of parody, thus serves as the organizing principle of the sentence itself. For the sake of vividness the majority of the short stories are told in the first person. The development of the West offered much to people who had little invested in the traditional social order, attracting a higher proportion of rough, antisocial lawbreakers than did the areas already settled. The next morning I was to start for the West to make my fortune. It is on a city block that houses business that close early hours. 3, December 1948, pp. Artwork inspired by "After Twenty Years". Proponents of either argument would agree on one thing: that standards and expectations in the short story have changed. Although "After Twenty Years" does not talk much about the West, the author's familiarity with life out on the frontier is implied throughout the story. He gives Bob a note and says that it is from "Patrolman Wells." ", At those points in his stories where the need to advance the narrative or tradition would have made a special description requisite, O. Henry turns the occasion to literary irony. Add After Twenty Years to your own personal library. "After Twenty Years" takes place on a street in New York City around the turn of the twentieth century. Sunlight "burnished her heavy hair to the color of an ancient Tuscan's shield." This book combines biographical information about Porter's four years in prison with photos of places associated with his life around that time, and it includes twelve complete stories that he wrote while in prison. nothing short of mastery to pull off the surprise ending, not just once or twice, but time and time again, to lull readers into a sense of security and then trick them even when they think they are braced for the coming reversal. The Tent and Other Stor…, Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) was a writer of short stories and novels in which comedy, grotesquerie, and violence were united with a profound moral…, Henry, Lenny 1958– His responsibility to the law takes precedence, and he arranges to have Bob arrested, though his emotional bond is still strong enough to prevent him from making the arrest himself. Smith had access to original letters and manuscripts and to many people who knew O. Henry personally. A mutual friend, Archibald Sessions, then editor of Ainslee's, arranged a dinner for the three of them at the Café Francis, but Porter when he came was in one of his low moods. His note is terse and offers no apology for having Bob arrested, but that is the best that Jimmy can do when he and a man who was once his best friend are on opposite sides of the law. And although I cannot consider O. Henry great, because of the limitations previously mentioned, yet I do believe that he will always be counted as one of the best American writers of the short story…. A bit like ‘An Unfinished Story’ is of more value than many long and labored books upon social conditions." In symbolism and color his slang need not yield to that of Mr. George Ade; he knows his world as well, but he sees it with an eye for its beauty as well as its absurdity. I was eighteen and Jimmy was twenty. And so on. The Bookman, although preferring Cabbages and Kings, agreed with the publishers' comparison of O. Henry with Maupassant: "Beyond this we need say nothing." Many of the businesses on the block are closed for the day. In "After Twenty Years," readers do not discover that Bob is a criminal until the last few lines of the story, when he is arrested. In one of the best of the comparisons, a girl sees the disapproving congregation of her small village church as a "hundred-eyed Cerberus that watched the gates through which her sins were fast thrusting her.". But he has other admirable traits: his frank individuality, his genuine democracy, his whole-souled optimism, his perennial humor, his sympathetic treatment of characteristic American life are irresistible. Fiction, as much as television and movies, often features characters in particular professions, such as law enforcement, legal practice, and medicine, because individuals in these fields deal with serious matters of life and death, guilt and innocence, or, as in this story, personal loyalties and social order. His vocabulary, which is really very large, is a servant, not a master. O. Henry quotes Tennyson, Spenser and others, informing their words with new meaning, inventing puns, deliberately misquoting parts, and so on. Many of the businesses on the block are closed for the day. "The bread of Gaul … (is) compounded after the formula for the recipe for the eternal hills." In these O. Henry is far from parody; he is sometimes even serious, sentimental or emotional. Publications The truth is O. Henry failed to take himself and his art seriously. Study old newspapers, phone books, or other sources to find the name and location of a restaurant that was in business near you a hundred years ago. But I have to reason out the meaning of words. #hrsecschooljkbose12thclass #afterwententyears After Twenty Years" is a short story written by O. Henry, first published in his anthology, The Four Million in 1906. Sometimes it is a twist of fate, but sometimes the twist is a piece of information that was not previously available to the reader and that sheds a new light on all that has come before it. Fifteen story-titles have classical overtones. That O. Henry was a technical artist, few will deny: even his mannerisms, such as his interpolative comments on plot-structure and his pseudo-moralizing divagations, cannot debar his narratives from the short-story class. In the first decade of the twentieth century, when this story was published, the social characteristics of the different geographic regions of the United States were much more distinct than they are in the twenty-first century. "The bride wore a simple white dress as beautifully draped as the costumes of the ancient Greeks. I see one, one day, reading a Latin grammar on hossback, and I never touched him." "After Twenty Years" takes place on a street in New York City around the turn of the twentieth century. By comparison, the final plot twist is weak; it is somewhat unexpected, but just not very interesting. 361-72. An American, in his leisure time at home, readily gives himself over to sentimental and religious-moralistic reflections and likes to have appropriate reading. There is imagination as well as vision, and beyond his expert knowledge of our colloquial tongue he possesses in the background, to be used when needed, a real style…. He and I were raised here in New York, just like two brothers, together. The story entitled ‘After Twenty years’ is about two best friends who had to part ways. Monkkonen, Eric H., Police in Urban America, 1860-1920, Cambridge University Press, 2004. Jimmy's dilemma is only engaging in theory and lacks true emotional impact. U.S. Army troops were sent to protect the settlers by fighting wars against Native American tribes such as the Cheyenne, the Apache, the Kiowa, and the Comanche. ", Two snowbound Westeners find occasion for regret: "If we'd studied Homer or Greek … we'd have some resources in the line of meditation and thought." 8.5. Gallegly, Joseph, From Alamo Plaza to Jack Harris's Saloon: O. Henry and the Southwest He Knew, Mouton, 1970. It's nearly 10:00, and all's quiet as he walks his beat, checking locks for safety. He checks the time on his watch, which is adorned with diamonds, indicating that he has been successful in his business endeavors. He turns up at the appointed time to see his old friend, and, finding that his friend must be arrested, he leaves because he is emotionally incapable of performing the arrest himself. Suddenly he stopped. O. Henry (186'2-1910) was born in North Carolina, U.S.A. His real name was William Sydney Porter. It would be absurd to say that the inherent value of his work was not primarily the cause of his popularity, for although slangy mannerisms might attract readers, the latter will not be held if there is not something worth while in the stories themselves; and it seems improbable that the public will soon change from an enthusiastic to a Laodicean temper. Within weeks, his father was put in debtor’s prison, where Dickens’s mother and siblings eventually joined him. His criminal nickname, "Silky" Bob, indicates that he probably is not known for violent crimes, but for crimes that involve cunning and deception. California's early development is attributed to the discovery of gold ore there in 1848, along with its accessibility by ocean. Fagin, N. Bryllion, "O. Henryism," in O. Henry: A Study of the Short Fiction, edited by Eugene Current-Garcia, Twayne Publishers, 1993, p. 168; originally published in Short Story-Writing: An Art or a Trade?, Thomas Seltzer, 1923. He was a writer of fiction no less than he was critic and theorist,—a feature very characteristic of our age which has completely dissociated itself from the naïve notion that writing is an "unconscious" process in which all depends on "inspiration" and "having it inside one." For one thing, he has paid close attention to the photos of wanted criminals that are sent to the New York police department from other parts of the country. ; horrors come thick and fast; situations, surprises and transformations are of the most improbable sort—in short, all the stereotypes hyperbolized. There is little more tendency to adjectivity in his descriptions of objects than there is in his descriptions of persons. The Midwest was built by immigrant labor during the Industrial Revolution of the late nineteenth century, and the Great Plains were known as a land of widely dispersed, lonely farms. British comedian, actor, writer, and director Thus, in O. Henry's hands the short story undergoes regeneration, becoming a unique composite of literary feuilleton and comedy or vaudeville dialogue…. Readers are deprived of being participants in Jimmy's decision to have Bob arrested, as if there were no moral question involved. The secrets of the ancients include "Etruscan inscriptions." The census of 1890 made it clear that by that time the "wild" days were through, the West was settled. When he is questioned about whether Jimmy might forget about an appointment that was made so long ago, he says that Jimmy was the kind of friend who would remain true to the promise he once gave, despite whatever changes might have come to his life over the course of twenty years. We haven't had a parodist with so subtle a knowledge of his craft, so inclined time and again to initiate the reader into its mysteries, probably since the time of Laurence Sterne. The sentimental bond between them is so strong that Jimmy cannot arrest Bob himself, so he leaves and sends another officer to do it. This biography has the distinction of being written shortly after William Sydney Porter's death. All along, the story is headed toward an explanation of what happened to Jimmy. …O. Most online reference entries and articles do not have page numbers. The narrator arrives in the city on a train: "All I could see through the streaming windows were two rows of dim houses. "Twenty years ago to-night," said the man, "I dined here at 'Big Joe' Brady's with Jimmy Wells, my best chum, and the finest chap in the world. In After Twenty Years by O. Henry we have the theme of friendship, change, guilt and dedication or loyalty. She died in 1898, and Porter's trial went on. He summarized the fading of O. Henry's reputation this way: "That O. Henry's piquant audacities of style are attractive is indisputable, but they are certain to lose their piquancy and to lower his rank in literature. Seibel wrote up the story for the Gazette, and three months later, in July, Porter walked into the newspaper office to introduce himself while on one of his visits to see Margaret. "After Twenty Years "‘… New Yorkers, the most progressive and independent citizens of any country in the world,’ I continued, with the fatuity of a provincial who has eaten the Broadway lotus." The Classics find a broad range in O. Henry. In addition to its contribution along humorous lines, the classical allusion is employed by O. Henry with serious and often significant intent. Before they parted, though, Bob and Jimmy made an agreement to meet in twenty years' time at the restaurant where they last saw each other. Twists can be interesting, and the way that the story surprises readers can be looked at as an intellectual puzzle, but they do little to engage the reader on an emotional level. To judge O. Henry as if he were a novelist is unfair. While his innocence makes him miss some details, his criminal past also blinds him to the realities of the situation. For although these endings are unexpected, the author never makes any statement in the body that can be held against him. Retrieved March 15, 2021 from Encyclopedia.com: https://www.encyclopedia.com/education/news-wires-white-papers-and-books/after-twenty-years. The average reader may have no difficulty with Cupid, Psyche, Jupiter, Juno, Mars, Minerva, et al., but an appreciation of an "Autolycan adventure" and an "Autolycan adventurer" demands a better-than-average classical background. After twenty years from the time it became due, a bond will be presumed to have been paid. For fully half of the evening Porter seemed "stolid" and so unresponsive that she "had the miserable feeling that I was a failure as a guest." As they chat, Jimmy points out that he has not done as well financially as Bob: he has a position in a city department. Within the “Cite this article” tool, pick a style to see how all available information looks when formatted according to that style. Words must be coined to express his thought, or the usual meaning of words must be distorted; O. Henry did both without compunction. In another story ("The Ransom of Mack"), two friends carry on a conversation from which it is possible to conclude that Mack is getting married (a conclusion that Mack's friend does make). In certain instances, as will be seen later on, this cyclical organization is also supported by a unity of principal characters (Jeff and Andy in The Gentle Grafter), and sometimes the connection between the stories is underscored by their being called "chapters," as they are in the collections Heart of the West and Whirligigs…. Source: Gerald Langford, "Chapter 11," in Alias O. Henry: A Biography of William Sydney Porter, The Macmillan Company, 1957, pp. This goes to prove that even though O. Henry pokes fun at all rules, he obeys them in the fundamental particulars. Jimmy does not consider his actions within the story's narrative, but instead he explains them after he has acted. In Mexico, "The mountains reached up their bulky shoulders to receive the level gallop of Apollo's homing steeds." The twist relies on a careful balance of skillful language, particular characters, and a strong authorial discernment that controls which details are revealed and which are withheld. The next morning I was to start for the West to make my fortune. The author of "After Twenty Years" is the protagonist of Steven Saylor's novel, O. Henry's best-known and frequently reprinted short story is "The Gift of the Magi," about a poor young couple in New York and the sacrifices they undergo to buy Christmas presents for each other. Delighted at meeting the famous author, Seibel insisted on taking Porter home to lunch and afterward (since he was a member of the Board of Education) out to the auction of a run-down, discarded schoolhouse in one of the suburbs. Common among men hired for their ability to do difficult work such as clearing timber, cultivating land, laying railroad track, fur trading, mining, and tending livestock were guns and alcohol, which often led to violence and criminal activity. Bob explains why he is there, and Jimmy, who needs no explanation, listens for a while. "These sketches of New York life are among the best things put together in many a day," the Critic said. More importantly, though, is the fact that Jimmy knows, as he listens to Bob reminisce about his old friend, that he will have to have Bob arrested. Though his time in the West has obviously changed Bob in some ways, he is willing to forget his current status briefly in the memory of his old friendship. A typical O. Henry story will involve two people with an emotional connection to each other that is put under stress by the circumstances they face. He died in New York City of cirrhosis of the liver on June 5, 1910. Today: A picture taken on one end of the continent can show up on a friend's phone or computer on the other coast within seconds. I was eighteen and Jimmy was twenty. It was quite usual for him to ramble carelessly afield, making sundry vague remarks about the attitude of the Columbia College professors towards grammar and the plagiarism he is contemplating, and then to lament that, in thus sparring for an opening, he has forgotten to follow Aristotle's directions! Encyclopedia.com. Astute readers might be able to anticipate this turn of events if they notice the evasive language that O. Henry uses: not only does he have the man who walks up fail to answer the direct question "Is that you, Jimmy Wells?" ." MAJOR WORKS: Given such a system of narration, dialogue stands out with particular relief and takes on a substantial share of the effect of plot and style. Henry’ does not hesitate to round out, to fill in, to take advantage of coincidence, in short, to indulge his reader's weak-minded craving for a little human enjoyment…. He does most of the talking. They return to keep an appointment they had made twenty years … It is doubtful that the writer of the present day can safely assume that marked degree of classical knowledge on the part of his theoretically better educated reader. That is his custom, his tradition, a feature of national history conditioned by the peculiarities of his way of life and civilization…. Because of Porter's social position and the fact that Athol was ill with tuberculosis, her family opposed their romance. Here i have endeavored to explain Reference to the context in exam. For the latter not only made a servant of words, but he also made a servant of grammar and rhetoric. But taste changes and, what is more pertinent, slang itself changes, so that his constant use of slang will some day count heavily against him. The horrific conditions in the factory haunted him … Readers never learn what crimes "Silky" Bob is wanted for in Chicago, only that he is established enough as a criminal to earn a criminal nickname. When Bob talks about living out West, he first talks about making his fortune, but later he ominously suggests that the life that he has been leading has put a "razor-edge" on him, indicating that it has made him tough. Over a hundred years later, O. Henry is often forgotten by popular audiences, who by definition tend to turn their attention to contemporary works. Yes, Bob is a criminal, but, judging by the nickname "Silky," he is probably not a violent criminal. ", Sparta provides several references. He had stories published in McClure's and the Outlook, writing under the name O. Henry to hide his true identity. In addition to this maltreatment of words (and in the mouths of his low characters it becomes mere punning), his vocabulary was stretched by an appalling number of slang words and slang phrases. It will make one a writer for the hour, not a writer for all time. A thug's "hand was itching to play the Roman and wrest the rag Sabine…." He is the one who has traveled to see his old friend Jimmy for several reasons. The story was included in the 1906 anthology The Four Million, and it has since been republished in many short story collections. He also takes the time to write a note to Bob, explaining himself, so that Bob will not think that Jimmy forgot about him after twenty years. The general observation should be made that O. Henry's basic stylistic device (shown both in his dialogues and in the plot construction itself) is the confrontation of very remote, seemingly unrelated and, for that reason, surprising words, ideas, subjects or feelings. But I looked the other way. Some people would maintain that he was a populist writer whose knowledge of how to use flat characters and manipulate sentimentality to reach the lowest common denominator would speak to audiences in any generation. There is a ship, the Ariadne, and a coal-black horse is named Erebus. The make of it you will have to surmise sorrowfully; I am giving you unsubsidized fiction; had it been a street car I could have told you its voltage and the number of flat wheels it had." We figured that in twenty years each of us ought to have our destiny worked out and our fortunes made, whatever they were going to be." By referring to him only as "the policeman," O. Henry keeps Jimmy's identity a secret from the reader as well as from Bob. v-x. 2, Spring 1914, pp. In writing, forget the public. I'll go get some at the sink.". A policeman walks along the block, testing the doorknobs of businesses, making sure that they are locked and secure against burglars. Share. He speaks glowingly about what a great friend Jimmy was and relates that he has traveled across the country, over a thousand miles, to see him again. Although this plot twist seems to come from nowhere, however, it is the most satisfying because of the way that O. Henry springs it on his readers. ", Elsewhere Jennings recalls having spent several hours in O. Henry's room waiting for him to finish writing a story: "He was writing with lightning speed. The Four Million, containing such favorites as "The Gift of the Magi," "Mammon and the Archer," "An Unfinished Story," and "The Furnished Room," was well received by the critics, though not so enthusiastically as the opinions expressed some years later would lead one to expect. Either a character who participated in the action is the narrator; or an outsider tells the story as a participant told it to him; or the story is told apparently in the third person until the author intrudes with his own comments and makes it a first-person narrative. This proved a difficult undertaking because of Porter's chronic indebtedness to a small group of editors who had advanced him money for future stories. The man waits twenty minutes more. It's either Tantalus or Liver or Horace, and it's printed in Latin….". 1926. At times, his carefully selected words add to the humor of a story. This opened the way for his extensive use of slang in crime stories, his express avoidance of "artiness," his unfailingly downgrading images, their humor stemming from their oddity and unexpectedness, and so on. "After Twenty Years "There were a thousand golden apples coming to her as Helen of the Troy laundries." But it seems to me that words (at any rate per) are wasted in an effort to describe the beautiful. He was found guilty of embezzling and on March 25, 1898, began a three-year sentence in an Ohio prison. "Twenty years ago to–night," said the man, "I dined here at 'Big Joe' Brady's with Jimmy Wells, my best chum, and the finest chap in the world. He chats openly with the policeman, unaware that his picture has been forwarded from Chicago and that the policeman has seen it. Her eyes were wide apart, and she possessed the calm that precedes a storm that never comes. An Unreconstructed Rebel, who asserts that "the Confederacy is running along as solid as the Roman empire," informs a Yankee in "Two Renegades" that "we sent a good many of ye over to old mortuis nisi bonum.