Symbolic Massage of O. Henry

O.Henry generously scatters symbolic messages throughout the text. Trysdale’s slow opening of gloves becomes symbolic of his conscious rejection of the past. At the same time, the warmth of the gloves may be equated with the warmth of love that Trysdale has to let go of.

Cactus, a thorny plant, a conventionally accepted symbol of repulsion and distancing, suffering and wound, becomes a symbol of amorous invitation. This is the imaginative genius of O. Henry- he transforms the deep-rooted conventions of the readers to ensure that they see the reversal in its entirety. The object of supposed rejection becomes the object of acceptance.

In the story the readers also find such symbols as a pedestal that represents passion for vanity; a thorn that is interpreted by the author as the tricky thing; a bay that turns to be the symbol of false glory.  

To understand how the author manipulates the reading experience, it becomes useful to identify the correlation of symbols, narrative mode and character representation to lead to the point of reversal when the irony of fate is realized by both characters and readers. He follows every rule of the genre- limited number of characters, unity of place, time and action; single line of plot; potent symbolism and link with real life experience. At the same time, he goes beyond the genre, in portraying a singular universality and almost pathetic defeat of man in the hands of fate.