The Furnished Room

“It would be strange if there could not be found a ghost or two in the wake of all these vagrant guests.”

O. Henry introduces the idea of ghosts early in the text to foreshadow the young man’s experience when he gets to the room. At the end of the text, the reader realizes that Eloise’s ghost haunted the furnished room.

“To the door of this, the twelfth house whose bell he had rung, came a housekeeper who made him think of an unwholesome, surfeited worm that had eaten its nut to a hollow shell and now sought to fill the vacancy with edible lodgers.”

The housekeeper is compared to a worm with an insatiable appetite. This parasitic imagery indicates she is looking for more unsuspecting victims on whom to prey. The description implies that Mrs. Purdy is immoral and exploits the transient population.

“It may be that statues of the saints had stood there, but it was not difficult to conceive that imps and devils had dragged them forth in the darkness and down to the unholy depths of some furnished pit below.”

O. Henry establishes the mood of the text in this line by using infernal images of “imps,” “devils,” “unholy depths,” and a “furnished pit.” The descriptions suggest the boarding house is comparable to hell and indicate the misery of its tenants.

“He who loved her best had tried to find her.”

This simple line conveys the protagonist’s love for Eloise, as demonstrated in his five-month search for her. The extract suggests the genuine human connection that Eloise left behind when she moved to New York City.

“The furnished room received its latest guest with a first glow of pseudo-hospitality, a hectic, haggard, perfunctory welcome like the specious smile of a demirep.”

This first description of the furnished room personifies it with such phrases as “received its latest guest” and “hectic, haggard, perfunctory welcome.” The simile “like the specious smile of a demirep” compares the room’s welcome to that of a sex worker, feigning pleasure when greeting a new client. The room’s hospitality is superficial and fake.

“The guest reclined, inert, upon a chair, while the room, confused in speech as though it were an apartment in Babel, tried to discourse to him of its divers tenantry.”

The furnished room is again personified as it is described as attempting to talk to its new tenant. A simile is used to compare the room to an apartment in Babel, a Biblical reference to the tower of Babel, where God confused the languages of everyone. This simile and the phrase “divers tenantry” refer to the many different people who have lived in the room and left their mark there.

“The furniture was chipped and bruised; the couch, distorted by bursting springs, seemed a horrible monster that had been slain during the stress of some grotesque convulsion.”

Here, the couch is compared to a slain monster, highlighting the abuse the furniture in the room has taken over the years. The imagery, in line with such words as “slain” and “grotesque,” references the trauma that has taken place in the room and foreshadows the trauma still to come in the story.

“Then suddenly, as he rested there, the room was filled with the strong, sweet odor of mignonette. It came as upon a single buffet of wind with such sureness and fragrance and emphasis that it almost seemed a living visitant.”

This is the first reference to Eloise’s perfume, mignonette. The phrase “it almost seemed like a living visitant” indicates that it is more than just a scent, foreshadowing that the ghost of Eloise is in the room.

“The rich odor clung to him and wrapped him around. He reached out his arms for it, all his senses for the time confused and commingled. How could one be peremptorily called by an odor?”

Eloise’s scent is described as clinging to and wrapping around the protagonist. Evoking physical intimacy, the imagery conveys the young man’s love for Eloise. This brief evocation of love and passion contrasts with the bleak atmosphere of the room.

“And then he traversed the room like a hound on the scent, skimming the walls, considering the corners of the bulging matting on his hands and knees, rummaging mantel and tables, the curtains and hangings, the drunken cabinet in the corner, for a visible sign, unable to perceive that she was there beside, around, against, within, above him, clinging to him, wooing him, calling him so poignantly through the finer senses that even his grosser ones became cognizant of the call.”

The simile comparing the young man to “a hound on the scent” demonstrates his animal-like fervor to discover some personal effect of Eloise’s and confirm that she stayed in the room. While he frantically searches, it is significant that Eloise is described as “clinging to him, wooing him,” symbolizing that her spirit is there with him.

“The room was dead. The essence that had vivified it was gone.”

Here, the word “vivified,” meaning “brought to life,” underscores how Eloise’s scent reignites the protagonist’s hope. After Mrs. Purdy fails to confirm that Eloise was a prior tenant, the young man returns to the room only to find Eloise’s scent gone. The room feels dead, reflecting his hopelessness and foreshadowing his own imminent death.

“Soon he walked to the bed and began to tear the sheets into strips. With the blade of his knife he drove them tightly into every crevice around the windows and door. When all was snug and taut he turned out the light, turned the gas full on again and laid himself gratefully upon the bed.”

These lines reveal the way in which the young man died by suicide after his hope to find Eloise was crushed. The adverb “gratefully” is significant as it indicates how the young man’s hopelessness makes death a welcome relief. The situational irony that his death parallels Eloise’s is not revealed until the end of the story.

“Tis just one wake ago this day I helped ye lay out the third-floor-back. A pretty slip of a colleen she was to be killin’ herself wid the gas—a swate little face she had, Mrs. Purdy, ma’am.”

This line, spoken by Mrs. McCool, is significant as it reveals that a young woman killed herself in the same room that the young man rented. Mrs. McCool’s vernacular and use of the phrase “pretty slip of a colleen” indicates she is likely of Irish descent. The phrase emphasizes the dead young woman’s fragile beauty, echoing her vulnerable psychological state.