Furnished Room Analysis

With literary devices making up part of what we might read in a popular book or short story, like “The Furnished Room” by O. Henry, it is important to understand what they mean and how they affect that story. Literary devices such as imagery, irony, and foreshadowing playing roles in the makeup of O. Henry’s “The Furnished Room” lead to a better story. Which in turn engages the readers and adds a depth that stories, who do not use literary devices, cannot do. Going in-depth into what these devices mean for “The Furnished Room” and how they tie in with the theme of the story. A physical image is easy to explain and comprehend as it is tangible. The images in stories face a unique challenge to convey an image as descriptive as possible, a challenge that O. Henry tackles well when he writes, “He thought that she was like some fat, colorless, legless, thing that had come up from a hole in the ground, hungrily hoping for something, or someone to eat” (Henry
Verbal, dramatic, and situational. O. Henry uses two of the three types. When the two ladies at the end of the book are discussing about the woman who died the week before on of the ladies, Mrs. McCool says, “And to kill herself with the gas!” (Henry 25) which is an example of dramatic irony in “The Furnished Room” as even though the young man has or is in the process of doing the same thing to himself. She does not know what has happened to the man, but we as the reader already know. Another example of irony in “The Furnished Room” is when as the man was asking Mrs.Purdy who has stayed in the room before she answers “It was Sprowls and Mooney, as I said” (Henry 24). Which would be verbal irony as Mrs. Purdy knows that a woman was there even before Sprowls and Mooney, but decides to lie to the man instead of tell the truth. This all ties in with the theme as if the ladies would have known the implications of what they said, or didn’t say, the man’s hope and life might have been