In order to portray the characters, to describe the setting and to render the general mood and atmosphere of the passage vividly and convincingly the author of the analysed passage resorts to the following devices:

-                     Lexical:

+  metaphor: pay something on his rent; honk loudly; to seize a chance;

+   personification: the winters that had the double front room with private bath; through the glass of the little skylight you saw a square of blue infinity; with her demon's smile at his pale looks;

+   irony: "In this closet," she said, "one could keep a skeleton or anaesthetic or coal”; "Eight dollars?" said Miss Leeson. "Dear me! I'm not Hetty if I do look green.”; Mr. Skidder jumped and strewed the floor with cigarette stubs at the rap on his door.; "Excuse me, Mr. Skidder," said Mrs. Parker, with her demon's smile at his pale looks. "I didn't know you were in. I asked the lady to have a look at your lambrequins.";

+   epithets: incredulous, pitying, sneering, icy stare;

+   oxymoron: roguish heroine; heavy hair; vivacious features;

+   simile: in a cloud of smoke like an aerial cuttlefish;

+   hyperbole: his fatness hovered above her like an avalanche.

-                     Phonetic:

+   alliteration: smoked cigarettes; still stood; Clara would say; way to the second floor back; forty-five, fat, flush and foolish

-                     Syntactical:

+   polysyndeton: She was a very little girl, with eyes and hair that had kept on growing after she had stopped and that always looked as if…; …black-haired heroine from his latest (unproduced) play and inserting a small, roguish one with heavy, bright hair and vivacious features…; … thrust her into a vault with a glimmer of light in its top and muttered the menacing and cabalistic words…; And Miss Dorn, who shot at the moving ducks at Coney every Sunday and worked in a department store, sat on the bottom step and sniffed.

+   assonance: feeling, half- Tuskegeenial, sneering, Leeson, sleeves;

+   repetition: Avaunt, Hoover! Hoover, forty-five, flush and foolish, might carry off Helen herself; Hoover, forty-five, flush, foolish and fat is meat for perdition.

-                     Graphic and phonetic:

+   graphon: Then--oh, then—if

As for the plot of the story, it has its introduction, which involves the reader into the matter of Mrs. Parker’s apartments. The introduction goes from the very beginning of the story up to the words: “One day Miss Leeson came hunting for a room...”. The description of  Leeson’s life there is the development of events. The climax of the story is the place where Dr. Jackson carried Ms. Leeson into the ambulance. The anticlimax is in the last paragraph of the story where Dr. Jackson says that his patient will recover.

The types of speech employed by the author of the analysed story are narration, description and dialogue. The text is the narration with the elements of descriptions and dialogues.

Mr. Skidder is a playwriter. He is described indirectly. He has a bright imagination and smokes cigarettes as most creative people in that time. To my mind, he sees in Mrs. Leeson his ideal, it is visible in the moments where he makes her the main heroine of his romantic private, but not still existing drama. Reading that he owes money for his apartments we can make conclusion that he is not a successful playwriter. Also we see that he is afraid of the snobbish landlady, and after every visit he pays some money for the apartments.

The next character is coloured maid Clara. She is also depicted indirectly. As Mrs. Parker makes her to give the skylight room in rent, we can make conclusion that she does all bad job in the apartment. As she is coloured, it is possible that she can be uneducated.

The next character is Miss Longnecker. She is depicted in both direct and indirect ways: “But Miss Longnecker, the tall blonde who taught in a public school...”. She is also not pleased with their new neighbour and maybe she envies her, because Ms. Leeson attracts all the men in the apartment. Also she named the star which Leeson called Billy Jackson “Gamma, of the constellation Cassiopeia” and it means that she can teach astronomy, and also she can be well educated.

Miss Dorn is indirectly. The author says: “Miss Dorn, who shot at the moving ducks at Coney every Sunday and worked in a department store”. So we can consider that her hobby is shooting and she has quite good salary at the department store as she shots every Sunday. She is also angry that all men in the apartment pay too much attention to Ms. Leeson. She and Miss Lognecker might be friends. To my mind she can be ill-natured as she shots every week.

Mr. Evans is depicted indirectly. He is very young. The author says: ”And especially very young Mr. Evans who set up a hollow cough to induce her to ask him to leave off cigarettes”. He is pleased when Leeson asks him to abandon smoking. As he is very young and smokes, he may be living too far from his parents and began to work too early.

Mr. Hoover is depicted directly and indirectly: “Mr. Hoover, who was forty-five, fat, flush and foolish”. He also pays attention to Mrs. Leeson and even tried to make her a proposal. He also tries to protect her from other women.

Dr. William Jackson is depicted directly and indirectly. “Capable young medico, in his white linen coat, ready, active, confident, with his smooth face half debonair, half grim, danced up the steps”. The author says the doctor is young but clever, he loves his job. Also we can make conclusion that he fall in love with his patient.

From the point of view of presentation the following story is the 3^rd person narration. The author of the story is not the direct participant of the events, he is just a commentator of the events.

The characters we meet in the story under analysis are:

-                     Miss Elsie Leeson, a young room hunter, the protagonist

-                     Mrs. Parker, landlady, the antagonist

-                     Mr. Skidder, playwriter

-                     Clara, maid

-                     Miss Longnecker, teacher

-                     Miss Dorn

-                     Mr. Evans

-                     Mr. Hoover

-                     Dr. William Jackson

The first character we meet is Mrs. Parker, the landlady, who is a bit snobbish. She is depicted in both direct and indirect ways. She considers herself to be of too high status, for example “Then you would manage to stammer forth the confession that you were neither a doctor nor a dentist. Mrs. Parker's manner of receiving the admission was such that you could never afterward entertain the same feeling toward your parents, who had neglected to train you up in one of the professions that fitted Mrs. Parker's parlours”. From these words we see that Mrs. Parker is snobbish, her main characteristic is that she wears mask as a stated type of behaviour for different conditions. The only thing which matters for her is money and her apartment. The smallest her room is her embarrassment.   She considers most of her lodgers not to be worth of living there. She is full of indifference. Even when the doctor comes to Miss Leeson, she remembers her name with troubles.  Also she was not satisfied with her new lodger: ” Mrs. Parker gave her the incredulous, pitying, sneering, icy stare that she kept for those who failed to qualify as doctors or dentists, and led the way to the second floor back” The snobbish landlady was insensitive to Miss Leeson. We should keep ourselves alert and sensitive to the needs of others.

We next meet Miss Leeson, a young typist who rents "the skylight room" because it is the only room she can afford. She is described in both direct and indirect ways. “She carried a typewriter made to be lugged around by a much larger lady. She was a very little girl, with eyes and hair that had kept on growing after she had stopped and that always looked as if they were saying: "Goodness me! Why didn't you keep up with us?” and because of her beauty, because of her charm the lodgers couldn’t help loving her. She is dreamy and optimistic one. She call the star “Billy Jackson” dreaming about the man who is ideal for her. Miss Leeson has an ideal of true love and romance in her mind and in her heart. She clings to this ideal even when she becomes destitute and is starving. She does not compromise. But according to the author, Miss Leeson is not created for the skylight room. She lives there because it is the only one she can afford. And when she was fired, she felt herself broken and depressive, she stopped dreaming, she began to disappoint in her dreams and the author says: ” Miss Longnecker must be right; it was Gamma, of the constellation Cassiopeia, and not Billy Jackson. And yet she could not let it be Gamma”. But Miss Leeson's dream comes true. Her prince rescues her. We shall assume that Dr. Jackson is a prince who is worth the wait.

The events in the analyzed story happen in the shared apartments in New York and in the skylight room, where the main character lives. The place is typical American apartment from the beginning of the XX century. Firstly we visit the double parlours, but if you are neither a doctor nor a dentist, you go to the second floor with eight dollar rooms. And especially, we visit Mr. Skidder's large hall room to admire the lambrequins. But if you still want something cheaper, Mrs. Parker will call her coloured maid and she will send you to the Skylight Room, which costs three dollars. The author shows us such a division to underline that everyone can dream (as Mr. Skidder dreams in his hall room and Ms. Leeson dreams in her little 7x8 feet room) and it doesn’t matter what apartments you have. The setting is represented in general way, it completely corresponds to the time it was written.

The main theme of the story is stratification of society, its division into classes, estates, leading to social inequality and contradiction in the needs, values ​​and motivations. So, Mrs. Parker by renting her rooms before exploring the future tenant, trying to sell him a more expensive room, “Convinced by her second-floor manner that it was worth the $12.” And only when she was sure that it is impossible to give more expensive room you hear, ” Two dollars, suh,” Clara would say in her half-contemptuous, half- Tuskegeenial tones.

The next theme of the story is the behaviour of people from different social groups and their attitude towards the other people. As we see in the story, the landlady Mrs. Parker, clearly aware of her higher social status (the status of the landlady), attitudes to the tenants differently.

The story under analysis is written by William Sydney Porter (September 11, 1862 – June 5, 1910), known by his pen name O. Henry, was an American writer.

His life was rather difficult. He worked as reporter and columnist, he was imprisoned for embezzling money, he had to support his daughter Margaret. By the way, being imprisoned, he began his literary carrer.

O. Henry's short stories are known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization, clever surprise endings and humour. He combined humour and pathos with an ironic twist of plot. Although some critics were not so enthusiastic about his formulatic way of writing, the public loved his entertaining tales and uncomplicated characters.

A large group of O. Henry’s short stories are devoted to the description of the capitalist city. Big city is cruel and indifferent to the fate of the little man. O. Henry paints an impressive picture of insecurity, poverty of ordinary people, their dashed hopes, shattered illusions. Typists, shop assistants, actors, clerks, the heroes of these stories, the author portrayed with sympathy and compassion - they are the victim of a capitalist city, cruel and callous, indifferent to their fate. Not all the stories about Henry `are harmless in nature.

Speaking about realistic and romantic stories of Henry we should mention also that the writer created such sentimental novels and short stories, written in the spirit of "gentle realism". There were many short stories with a traditional "happy ending" pure entertainment. In the American literature of the late XIX - early XX century O. Henry was intermediate between the critical and realistic direction, the school of "gentle realism" and the romantic trend, which has continued to exist. Artistic method of O. Henry is a combination of realistic, sentimental items, often difficult interwoven in his novels. The writer not only continued, but also made a lot of new development in the genre of the American short story. The undeniable merit of O. Henry is a realistic description of the city life and life little man. Very diverse genre of variety in his short story: short story, satire, short story, grotesque, romantic adventure novel, short story, parody, etc. majority of characteristic features of the artistic style of the writer are humor and satire, irony, comic grotesque. Stories are dynamic, written spoken language using jargon parody receptions, unexpected comparisons.

O. Henry's wrote such classic short stories as The Ransom of Red Chief, “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Furnished Room”. The story "A Skylight Room" was published in 1905.

The Skylight Room by O. Henry

"The Skylight Room" is a modern day fairy tale, set in the heart of the author's favorite city, New York. This heartwarming tale describes the dream come true romance of Miss Leeson, a poor working girl in New York. Miss Leeson is a young woman who works as a freelance typist with the big firms in the city. Her income is, however, insufficient to get her decent lodgings, so she is forced to rent what experienced house hunters call "the skylight room". The skylight room is a "well of stygian blackness", a sort of black hole where once light enters, it just dies in agony. The only source of natural light here is a small rectangular skylight. The skylight room has no windows; a small door leads to the landing. For a bright, vivacious and whimsically imaginative girl like Miss Leeson, this is the worst it can get. The bare room has a small cot, a wash stand and a dresser- all that Miss Leeson can afford. On the floors below live the more affluent lodgers of the sharp tongued and snobbish Mrs. Parker, Miss Leeson's landlady. Mr. Skidder is a playwright, perpetually on the lookout for a muse. Miss Leeson fits the bill, and the heroine of Mr. Skidder's next play becomes a short, happy-go-lucky woman who has long auburn hair. Mr. Hoover, a fat, middle aged man, is not above taking advantage of poor young girls, and the young Mr. Evans develops a boyish infatuation toward this woman whose fancies are forever skimming the skies and the stars. The schoolteacher, Miss Longnecker, a beautiful woman with no time for fancies, and the sports obsessed Miss Dorn are the other lodgers of Mrs. Parker's establishment. Miss Leeson soon becomes popular with all the lodgers, despite the fact that she is a poor outcast who has to live in "the skylight room". On a balmy evening, when the lodgers are sitting on the steps leading to the apartments, Miss Leeson points out Billy Jackson, the only star she can see through the skylight in her room. Though Miss Longnecker disagrees with her astronomical nomenclature and insists it is "Gamma", the other lodgers think Billy Jackson is a better name for a star. For Miss Leeson, the star is the only friend in a wide world whose only share comes to her in the form of a patch of black darkness called "the skylight room". It is not just a ball of gas and heat for her, it is a friend and confidante who knows her distress and sorrows. A few days later, Miss Leeson's unflagging cheerfulness finally starts to taper off, as she realizes that more difficulties lie in store for her. And as the story reaches its culmination, we find out exactly what the significance of "Billy Jackson" is in the existence of the poor typist.

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