The Furnished Room by O.

Henry
A tragic tale of lost love and broken faith is what the author O. Henry serves up to us in
the dark tale, 'The Furnished Room.' Based on the short story, the themes that can be found in
the story are based on the self-expression of obsession. The vigor in which the young man has
been searching for the woman suggests a level of obsession in his actions. He has been
searching for this woman for a lengthy period of time, visiting eleven other locations before
stopping at the twelfth. We know it's been a substantial period of time because the story tells us
he rested his baggage on the step and 'wiped the dust from his hatband and forehead.' He
mentions later it has been five months since he started looking. He clearly does not want to give
up his quest. Later in the story, we see the man's repeated, almost frantic, questioning of the
housekeeper, asking her the same questions multiple times about the room's former tenants
and who has visited the location.

The tone of the story is established in the opening of the paragraph. “Restless, shifting,
fugacious as time itself,” sets the tone of one that is full of anxiety. 0. Henry also uses the
setting of the story to create a feeling of isolation and loneliness of an individual in a big city.
“The furnished room received its latest guest with a glow of pseudo-hospitality, a hectic,
haggard, perfunctory welcome like the specious smile of a demirep.” The selections above show
how the author can use setting to create a mood but also how setting can be used to develop
theme and the plot of a story.

This story also contains both larger conceptual symbols and individual items that carry
symbolic meaning. First of all, the poor, un-kept condition of the furnished room that the young
man rents is a symbol for the dreary living conditions in this part of the city - particularly for
those straying aimlessly from room to room. Each single item he discovers, though he does not
know the story behind it or its former owner, becomes another symbol of the transient nature of
his life - and the lives of many of ''the four million''. A turning point in the story comes when the
protagonist catches the faint smell of mignonette in the room, a flower scent that reminds him
strongly of the girl he is seeking. This memory causes him to think that the girl must have been
in that same room. He even goes to question the landlady, who hides the fact that the girl
committed suicide in that room. The fact that it is a smell that alerts him is symbolic as well, as
they soon will both share the deadly smell of gas filling the small room.

(471 words)