O. Henry Short Story Analysis

A Life Story Told Through Short Stories Author O. Henry, also known as William Sydney Porter, is known for his short stories with witty narration, clever use of wordplay, and surprise endings. “After Mark Twain and Edgar Allen Poe, William Sydney Porter is the most read author in the world and bears the title ‘Master of the Short Story.’”(Winborne). Although most people don’t know that the overall underlying plot structure of an O. Henry short story is completely based off of his own life experiences. In an O. Henry story the first phase of his life is mirrored by the first phase of his story and so on throughout the work, which gave O. Henry a unique writing style and set him apart from other Authors of his time. The first twenty years …show more content…
In this part of his life O. Henry lost his job at a bank because he was arrested for embezzlement. He was convicted and sent to prison where it looked as if his career was shot and his life was pretty much over from there (Golgatha Press 145). People who assumed O. Henry would have a successful writing career gave up on him at this point. In “A Retrieved Reformation”, O. Henry makes the reader think that the criminal who just got out of jail will never change his ways. He was given a second chance by getting out of jail but he continued on the same path and it was assumed nothing could change him. Then he meets a girl and he completely gives up safe cracking and starts a legitimate business which changes the plot of the whole story (O. Henry, Reformation 4). Both in his life and in his books O. Henry throws in a plot twist and no one knows what is coming …show more content…
Henry story is the twist ending. There are more surprises keeping the readers on their toes, leading to an ‘ah-ha’ moment for the reader and a happy ending. O. Henry eventually got out of jail but his writing career was looking dull and no one expected him to get anywhere with it. Then he got an unexpected invitation to move to New York and pursue his writing career. From here he became very successful and a well-known author which was O. Henry’s surprise happy ending (Smith 180). O. Henry became one of the most read authors to ever live and became one of the greatest short story writers. Nobody that knew him saw this coming, which is why this was O. Henry’s own twist ending. O. Henry also showed twists at the end of all of his short stories. In The “Gift of the Magi”, it looks like each has found a way to successfully obtain an extravagant gift for their significant other, but the surprise comes when they realize they can’t enjoy the gift given to them because they have sold the object it was intended to be used for. In the case of the woman, she was given a comb for the hair that she sold and for the man, he was given a watch chain for the watch that he had sold (O. Henry, “Magi” 6). This type of ending happens in all of O. Henry’s short stories and it relates to his own life and his own twist