This document provides background information and analysis of O. Henry's short story "The Furnished Room". It discusses the author's background, the main characters, a brief summary of the plot, the setting, themes of hopelessness and isolation/loneliness, symbolism of the run-down room, and that the story is told from a limited omniscient point of view. The story is about a young man obsessively searching a large city for five months for a lost girl, until he loses all hope and takes his own life in the furnished room where she had previously died.

1. PRESENTATION
ENGLISH LITERATURE

2. What I want to talk about?
• Author’s background
• Character
• Summary
• Setting
• Theme
• Symbolism
• Point of view

3. The authors background
• Real name is William Sidney Porter
• Lived from 1862 – 1910
• Born in Greenboro, North Carolina
• Worked at ranch, work for the newspaper,
started on his own paper.
• Texas to America then back to Texas -> New
Orleans
• Got arrested ( fraud in bank)
• 270 short stories
• Died 

4. THE FURNISHED
ROOM

5. Characters
• Major character - young man
(protagonist)
• Minor character – Mrs. Purdy
& Mrs. Cool
• -Eloise

6. SUMMARY
LISTEN TO ME 
LEND ME YOUR EARS PLEASE 
IF NOT LEAVE THE ROOM

9. Setting
• The worn, bruised, furnished
room
• In a city

10. THEMES
HOPELESSNESS
• After the man has searched all over the town for five months, he gives up
his hope. Apparently, he was obsessed with this girl and did not want to
live without her. He faced the large city looking for one lost girl with
nothing but negative results.
• “The ebbing of his hope drained his faith. He sat staring at the yellow,
singing gaslight. Soon he walks to the bed…he drove [the torn sheets] in
every crevice around the window…turned on the gas and laid himself
gratefully upon the bed.”
• When he smells her fragrance and was sure that she had been in the
room, the denial of the housekeeper pushes him over the edge. He feels
that the girl is gone forever. Although he does not know it, he is right.
She committed suicide in the same bed in which he is going to die. The
housekeeper took all of his hope away when she lied to him.
• Man must have hope to live. Without hope, nothing will ever get better.

11. Isolation and loneliness
• The young man feels as though he is facing the world
alone. He is searching for one girl in a city of
thousands of girls.
• The room he rents seems to be monstrous in its
chipped furniture, distorted couch, and chipped
fireplace mantel. “A hut that is our own we can sweep
and adorn and cherish.” This is not his room, and he
has nothing to show for his life. He searches the room
to find anything that his lost love might have left
behind. Like the many other times, he finds nothing.
• His isolation from the rest of the world in this terrible
place without hope of finding his girl is a life not worth
living.
• Alone, depressed, isolated, and lonely- the young man
no longer wants to fight. He gives up his life.

12. Symbolism
• Poor condition of the room represents
the cruelty of the people in general.
“the furnished room received its latest
guest with a first glow of
pseudohospitality a hectic haggard,
perfunctory welcome like the specious
smile of a demirep”

13. Point of view
• Limited omnicient
• The story is seen through outside
observer.

14. Video

15. THE END