Teaching A Memorable Classic Short Story: O. Henry’s ‘The Romance of a Busy Broker’ (1906)
Bill Templer, Bulgaria
“The machine sitting at that desk was no longer a man; it was a busy New York broker, moved by buzzing wheels and uncoiling springs.”
Menu
Introduction
Versions and other resources
Comparing the two versions
Applying lexical frequency analysis
Rich literary vocabulary
Discussion points galore
Proposing marriage
Another wonderful short story for Christmas
Exploring O. Henry, his fiction and beyond
Conclusion
References
Appendix (Lextutor data)
O. Henry’s (1862-1910) tale “The Romance of a Busy Broker,” about the world of capitalist finance 110 years ago in New York City, is timeless and also relevant to today. With a touch of satire, it seeks to describe in part the mental state of a busy broker at his desk in the “rush of the modern world” of 1906. The story contains what may be the most unusual marriage proposal in American literary fiction in a classic O. Henry ‘surprise ending.’ Many of O. Henry’s 100s of short tales have an unexpected final ‘twist.’ Most of the tale describes the hectic office activity around the broker Harvey Maxwell and his stenographer Miss Leslie, with whom he arrives.
The tale is presented here in its highly literary original version (1906), 1,385 words, perhaps B2 level (and above) in difficulty of lexis -- and in a simpler version in VOA Special English, 1,211 words (about 12.5% shorter), suitable for advanced beginners, A2 level. It tests for Flesch-Kinkaid Grade Level at 4.0 and Flesch Reading Ease 82.46, average sentence length of 9.11 words, quite simple―check with this excellent readability tool. By contrast, the original tale is Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 7.39, Flesch Reading Ease 65.54, average no. of words per sentence 13.19, with one sentence a whopping 53 words long.
For the VOA version, best to first introduce to students, a VOA activities lesson plan is available here and can be utilized by all teachers, with pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading activities teachers can use or expand on. Explore the lesson plan, and add your own questions and angles. The VOA version also has a story quiz as a post-reading activity. Students can also be asked in groups to prepare such a quiz formulating other questions and multiple-choice answers. For starters, after several pre-reading activities, students can listen to an excellent video reading of the simplified VOA version. There is also a similar online reading of the original. Among aids online is this set of 23 slides by students in India as a project, based on the simpler version.
There is always the intriguing possibility for teachers and their learners, whatever the level, of comparing passages in the two story versions, analyzing what has been changed to ‘simplify’ the story, including many metaphors, repetitions and musical prose that the author enjoyed in his style as a fiction writer. Here several sentences, first in the original, then the simpler VOA version, note the significant differences in style and lexis:
1a. ‘She was beautiful in a way that was decidedly unstenographic. She forewent the pomp of the alluring pompadour.’ 1b. ‘She was very beautiful, and very different from most other secretaries. Her hair always looked plain and simple.’ 2a. ‘When the luncheon hour drew near there came a slight lull in the uproar.’ 2b. ‘When the dinner hour was near, things grew quieter.’ 3a. ‘His window was open, for the beloved janitress Spring had turned on a little warm through the waking registers of the earth.’ 3b. ‘His window was open, for it was the time of year when the weather was beginning to turn warm.’ Students can analyze the differences, as best they can.
As a pre-reading activity, students can be presented with this passage in the VOA version:
‘If you have never seen a busy New York broker on a busy day, you know little about men at work. Every minute of a broker’s hour is crowded. And this day was Harvey Maxwell’s busy day. Beside his table stood a machine. From this came a long, narrow, endless piece of paper, bringing him business news as soon as it happened. Men began to come into the office and speak to him. Some were happy, some were not, some were in a hurry, some were full of anger. Boys ran in and out with letters for him to read and answer at once. … The other men who worked in the office jumped around like sailors during a storm. And there were storms in the business world, fearful storms. Every storm was felt in the broker’s office.’
Here for comparison the same passage from the original:
‘He who has been denied the spectacle of a busy Manhattan broker during a rush of business is handicapped for the profession of anthropology. The poet sings of the ‘crowded hour of glorious life.’ The broker's hour is not only crowded, but the minutes and seconds are hanging to all the straps and packing both front and rear platforms. And this day was Harvey Maxwell's busy day. The ticker began to reel out jerkily its fitful coils of tape, the desk telephone had a chronic attack of buzzing. Men began to throng into the office and call at him over the railing, jovially, sharply, viciously, excitedly. Messenger boys ran in and out with messages and telegrams. The clerks in the office jumped about like sailors during a storm. … On the Exchange there were hurricanes and landslides and snowstorms and glaciers and volcanoes, and those elemental disturbances were reproduced in miniature in the broker’s offices.’
Useful for teachers and learners is a frequency analysis from lextutor (see Appendix) of the original story, there are some 60 lexemes above the K-4 level, making for much new more difficulty vocabulary, including nine K-6 lexemes,, ten words at K-7, five lexemes each for K-8 and K-10 level, four words at K-12. By contrast, the lextutor analysis for the simplified version has only 13 lexemes at K-2 level, only five lexemes above K-2 and none above K-5―a huge contrast to the original tale.
Teachers and students should learn to use the lextutor.ca tool for difficulty analysis with a great variety of texts. K-1 comprises the 1,000 most frequent lexemes (corpus-based, here BNC and COCA). Students can also test single lexemes for their level. For example, ‘countenance’ and ‘alluring’ in the original version are K-8 lexemes; ‘lull’ is K-7, ‘uproar’ is K-8, the lexeme ‘imperilled’ in the sentence: ‘Some of his own holdings were imperilled …’ is K-12.
Working in small groups, students can note what ‘hard,’ low-frequency words have been eliminated or rephrased in the VOA rendering. Ask students who are advanced beginners and perhaps at lower intermediate level to search for five words in the original story whose meaning they don’t know. Some lexis in the original story is business jargon. Like the description: “He dashed into the inner office with the haste of a short trying to cover.” What in financial stock-market talk does ‘cover a short’ mean? Students can readily find out. O. Henry enjoyed using many similes, metaphors, frequent figurative language; most such figurative expressions have been removed in the simpler downshifted version. In a literary allusion, O. Henry mentions that “the poet sings” of the “crowded hour of glorious life.” Students can easily track down that quote online (an epigraph to Chap. 13 in Walter Scott’s novel Old Morality [1816]). But Scott took this from a poem by a British soldier and poet. Find out what poem by whom? What is an epigraph?
The short story deals in part with the huge impact of technology on stock brokerage, like the Universal Stock Ticker machine invented by Edison in 1869 and redeveloped by the early 1900s, a forerunner in some ways of computerized information technology today. And the telephone, and other modes of ‘messaging’ the business world was using in its ‘extreme busyness’ and information hunger. The story also alludes to the ‘storms’ that brew in the world of finance. As the original story puts it: “Stocks and bonds, loans and mortgages, margins and securities—here was a world of finance, and there was no room in it for the human world or the world of nature.” A sentence revised in the simpler version as: “This was the world of business. It was not a human world, or the world of nature.” And within it Harvey Maxwell: “the man was working like some high-geared delicate machine–strung to full tension, going at full speed …” O. Henry presents the office as a kind of dehumanizing machinery, ask students to find the many images of this. Do students think stock brokers, bankers, then or today, would enjoy this snapshot of one of them? It is a portrait few on Wall Street might appreciate, sketched when much of NYC lived in poverty.
One key theme in the tale is how people get sucked unawares into their daily work to a point where they are almost unaware of anything else, forgetful, even absent-minded―a phenomenon increasingly evident in today’s smart-phoned, digital world. It also highlights a whole dimension of gender distinction in office work still prevalent today, male bosses and female secretaries, here the stenographer Miss Leslie. Would students like to have a job like that of Harvey Maxwell?
How are Maxwell and his stenographer Miss Leslie described? We learn about how Miss Leslie is dressed. What is Harvey Maxwell wearing, does O. Henry tell us? How is Maxwell’s ‘confidential clerk’ Pitcher dressed? Another woman comes sent from the Stenographer’s Agency: how is she described? How does Maxwell treat Miss Leslie when she stands near his desk? Is he brusque with her? What does he say to her? Dialogue is very important in the tale.
There is a key turning point in the story for Maxwell. In the original it is described: “The world of finance dwindled suddenly to a speck.” And in the simpler version: “The world of business grew smaller and smaller.” What has happened? Ask students to describe the situation. What has the “old man,” who “seemed to get more absent-minded and forgetful every day of the world,” actually forgotten? Could students imagine becoming as disastrously forgetful of themselves?
The story in fact begins with a look of surprise on clerk Pitcher’s “usually expressionless countenance’―why? Foreshadowing? And also ends with a huge surprise, for us readers too.
In a literary allusion, O. Henry mentions that “the poet sings” of the “crowded hour of glorious life.” Students and teachers can easily track down that quote online (an epigraph to Chap. 13 in Walter Scott’s novel Old Morality [1816]). But Scott took this from a poem by an earlier British soldier and poet, students can find out: what poem by whom? What is an epigraph?
One of the perennial themes in the story tale is how a man (or woman) makes a proposal for marriage to their beloved. Students can ask their mom and dad how they decided to marry, and their grandparents, where they met, how. What is the culture of ‘proposing’ in the (sub)cultures that your students live in? What has changed over the years, compared to the youth of their grandparents? Twenge (2017a) raises many questions about how smartphones are shaping the mentality, dating patterns and apps, virtual life of youth (iGen) today. See Boyd (2014) for the “most memorable” marriage proposals in English literature. Students can discuss images of proposing marriage and choose their favorites, or even draw their own. What are their views about marriage, dating? A popular very short O. Henry tale of romance is “The Count and the Wedding Guest,” also about a marriage proposal in NYC between ordinary working-class people and its ‘odd’ complications, with a surprising ending: here the original and a reading of it.
Templer (2014) presents one of O. Henry’s most famous tales, “The Gift of the Magi,” a classic Christmas story about a young New York couple, Della and Jim, much in love and living in relative poverty. As Current Garcia (1993: 79) notes: “O. Henry wrote few stories of average family life that approach in tenderness and popular appeal the action and upbeat tone of ‘The Gift of the Magi.’”The simplified tale is 1,565 words. Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level 4.4. Flesch-Kincaid Reading Ease 84. The original story is 2,089 words. Here (1) a lesson plan for this story from ESL Voices, (2) a rich range of teaching ideas and resources, and (3) a focus on vocabulary activities. Here a summary and analysis of the story as an animated video. Here a plot analysis. There are a number of video adaptations of the story on youtube, all based on the original. A famous Hollywood movie, O. Henry’s Full House (1952), includes a 23-minute famous dramatization of the story, available in full on youtube, starring Jeanne Crain as Della, Farley Granger as Jim, Hollywood stars in the 1950s, narrated by John Steinbeck. Here a reading of the original with video animation, here an abridged visual version. Students can act out the simple tale, there are several characters and scenes. They can compare the multitude of images relating to the story. These can hone visual literacy, inspire students to draw, describe what they see.
Students can read about William Sidney Porter, alias O. Henry, his life and work. The Complete Works of O. Henry are online, start browsing. Here another site with biography and 100s of the author’s stories. A standard study is Current-Garcia (1993). The Hollywood film “O. Henry’s Full House” (1952) is based on five of his stories and can be explored a bit with students. Here isO. Henry’s famous collection of tales set in New York The Four Million(1906); it contains both stories highlighted here. A number of O. Henry’s stories are available in VOA Special English, and most of his tales can be found online in the original. He is still a popular writer, and his stories are read in many school syllabi in the U.S. Some students might be encouraged to concentrate on his stories, a good way to learn English by such ‘narrow reading’ of work by a single author (Krashen 2004) that is actually very broadening. More generally, here are many classic very short stories for American high school students. Many authors’ works available here: https://americanliterature.com/ [not just US-American]. They can whet students’ appetites for fictional brevity. The much-coveted O. Henry Award for best short story is awarded annually.
Scott Thornbury (2017), in his blog commenting on 'Language arts' and their pitfalls in ELT pedagogy, suggests that literature should be largely avoided with more elementary ELLs. That is in my view proven wrong by vast teacher experience. Literary texts, deftly simplified, can be used from early levels of TEFL, especially short stories, flash fiction, short poems, simple drama, and of course the vast literature of children’s picturebooks, as stressed so articulately by CLELE JOURNAL. Also seen within the enveloping cyberspatial contexts many learners now live in (Twenge 2017a; 2017b), the society of “media culture” (Kellner, 2013). Here I have put forward a classic short story by O. Henry, much simplified, and in the ‘difficult’ original, also brilliantly read for audio comprehension on MP3. The fact that such a ‘downshifted’ version can be directly compared with the far more ‘literary’ original is to my mind an excellent means to teach what literary devices and figurative language seek (or fail) to achieve, how literature shapes language. Fresh approaches to literacy pedagogy are badly needed here in Bulgaria in TEFL and teaching Bulgarian (Novinite, 2016). Templer (2015) introduces a famous short story by Mark Twain about the California Gold Rush and its aftermath in original and VOA simplified version. Templer (2016a) combines a simplified tale by Jack London with a classic silent film by Charlie Chaplin about the Gold Rush. The potential of silent films for provoking a powerful visual prod to language learning and engaged communication by learners remains largely untapped. Templer (2016b) presents a simple X-mas tale “Kin” by social reformer Jacob Riis, a classic mini-fiction (661 words) about New York poverty on the street at Christmas in the 1890s. All such stories embody cultural differences we need to sensitize learners to. Well worth exploring are literature circles for ELLs, watch this US video, supplemented by this video on literature circle roles.
Boyd, J. (2014). The Most Memorable Marriage Proposals in Literature. B&N Read, Jan. 29.
http://goo.gl/1ABYSr
Current-Garcia, E. (1993). O. Henry: A Study of the Short Fiction. New York: Twayne.
Kellner, D. (2013). The Hidden Curricula of Education. UCLA video. http://goo.gl/y2MtUE
Krashen, S. (2004). The Case for Narrow Reading. Language Magazine 3(5), 17-19. http://goo.gl/qwN3kP
Novinite. (2016). Bulgarian Students’ Disturbing PISA Results Show Need for New Teaching Methods. Novinite, 7 Dec. http://goo.gl/TjbD67
Templer, B. (2014). A Wonderful American Short Story for Christmas: O. Henry’s ‘The Gift of the Magi.’ BETA E-Newsletter, #14, Nov.-Dec., 106-110. http://goo.gl/iaX6BH
________ (2015). Exploring Mark Twain’s The Californian’s Tale: American Dream Turned Nightmare. BETA E-Newsletter, #19, Sept.-Oct., 8-35. http://goo.gl/zkr9He
________ (2016a). Facing a Fierce Winter Wilderness: Two Classic American Tales by Jack London and Charlie Chaplin. BETA E-Newsletter, #21, Jan.-Feb., 9-31. http://goo.gl/EEjRTW
________ (2016b). “Kin”: A Christmas Story about New York’s Poor. BETA E-Newsletter, #25, Sept.-Oct., 25-42. http://goo.gl/ZfYdVp
Thornbury, S. (2017). L is for Language Arts. In: An A-Z of ELT, 13 August. http://goo.gl/DdeDes
Twenge, J.M. (2017a). Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation? The Atlantic, September.
http://goo.gl/YtDftH
_________ (2017b). iGen: Why Today’s Super-Connected Kids are Growing Up Less Rebellious, More Tolerant, Less Happy... New York: Simon & Schuster. http://goo.gl/XyxD4P
Lexical frequency analysis, original version of ‘Romance of a Busy Broker’
VOA simpler version
Please check the Methodology and Language for Secondary course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Teaching Advanced Students course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the CLIL for Secondary course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Practical uses of Technology in the English Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Practical uses of Mobile Technology in the English Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
Please check the Creative Methodology for the Classroom course at Pilgrims website.
|
