Question.546 - Assignment
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Madison Dunn ENGL-1302-231 Prof. Wishard April 17, 2022 A Rendezvous with Love Lost love is never found again, "The Cactus" emphasizes on valuing love. It is a story that unravels through the person's desire to prove that they can conquer anything they desire based on the premise of pride and conceit. The cactus is a story written by American writer O. Henry, in the year 1902. The writer is a half Victorian and a half modernist writer who perceives a tale of a couple's misunderstanding through a tool of language. The short story has a twist in the end. The story is entwined with a spectrum of emotions: pride, love, conceit, devotion, and vanity. The author has tried to put an ensemble of emotions through phrases like "How glad, how shy, how tremulous she was! How she fluttered like a snared bird when he laid his mightiness at her feet!" (O. Henry "The Cactus" ). These words have sheer poetic essence. The story's overall theme is pride and vanity do not offer love. This is projected through different settings, characters and symbolism in the story. The theme of the story is conveyed through the story's plot. One way in which the author shows the theme of pride and vanity is through the use of retrospection and regret. As Trysdale was standing in his bachelor's apartment and going through all the events of the day and a retrospection of the past few days in his life. Trysdale's mind flashed back to the previous several hours and days in a quick, terrifying flashback. It seemed not real to him, to lose upon someone he loved so dearly. It all started with a lie of knowing Spanish, that he hardly knew. This is an important plot in the story that offers a different turn. When Trysdale confesses his love for his ladylove, she does not give him an affirmative and gifts him a Cactus with a note "Ventomarme". Trysdale completely ignores the note, it is during the climax of the story the bride's brother reveals the meaning of "Ventomarme". Name means in English, "come and take me" (O Henry, The Cactus ). Trysdale, is a person clothed in the layers of pride, vanity, and self-obsession. The same qualities abandon him of having a clear communication that eventually transcends into losing his love. The theme and moral of the story are expressed through the author's use of setting. Trysdale is standing by the table in his apartment and looking at the green plant in a red earthen jar. The whole setting has a calming effect on the story, it provides a complete view to the story. The main protagonist is removing his gloves and remembering each event of the day. He is trying to make connections among all the events that occurred in the past few days. There is a sense of epiphany and regret both. "From this last hopeless point of view he still strove, as if it had become a habit of his mind, to reach some conjecture as to why and how he had lost her" (O. Henry "The Cactus"). The main thought that makes a conjecture is losing upon his lady love due to his judgmental error and the layers of pride and ego. Through the myriad of emotions that he feels, a common theme that follows is losing his lady love. In addition to settings, another important analysis to convey the theme is through character. Ladylove is an essential character in the story. The woman protagonist showed in the story is symbolic of devotion and selfless love. The lady love always put Trysdale on the pedestal such adoration of the person makes Trysdale more conceited and prouder than the value of the love in return. "She had always insisted upon placing him upon a pedestal, and he had accepted her homage with royal grandeur. She had invested him with an almost supernatural number of high attributes and excellencies and talents, and he had absorbed the oblation" (O Henry, "The Cactus"). He was not falling in love with his girlfriend, rather he admired the way she was committed and devoted to him and her adulation towards him. He chose pride over his girl-friends self-less love, which eventually put him on a spot of losing his lady love. The final point of analysis used to demonstrate the theme is through the use of irony. Cactus plays a crucial role throughout the story. The plant provided a deeper meaning and different context to the story through its use at a pivotal point in the story explaining the theme and context of the story. Trysdale if had he been less conceited, he could have confronted his beloved for a clear explanation about her "thorny" message, to know the meaning of "Ventomarme". He chose pride over love and eventually lost both. "He let it grace his conquering head, and, among its soft convolutions, he did not feel the prick of the thorn that was to pierce him later" (O. Henry "The Cactus"). It is a thorny cactus that has long been associated with pain, separation, insult, agony, and wound, but here it becomes a symbol of warmth and invitation towards togetherness. That is the suggestive irony the author addresses through the use of the plant cactus. The interconnection of the character, plot, symbol, and settings imparts an essential message to the reader that pride and ego do not offer love. At the same time, a vital aspect of the story is the representation of women. "O. Henry was a writer who was seriously committed to social reform in America at the turn of the century, especially with regards to women" (Hamilton). Women have always been stereotyped with different characteristics; in this story, the writer provides different shades to the female protagonist. However, the female character also symbolizes the theme of the story. The story is appealing since it sends an important message to the audience there is no substitute for self-less love, it is important to appreciate it and communicate without bringing gender biases into a relationship. Works Cited Hamilton, C. (2017).?The Role of Space, Money, and Travel in O. Henry's New York Stories?(Doctoral dissertation). Henry, O. The Cactus. Short Stories and Classic Literature, americanliterature.com/author/o henry/short-story/the-cactus.More Articles From English
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