Short-Story Critique - "The Green Door"

     Another assignment for Creative Writing, critiquing a short story.

     The short story I chose to critique is “The Green Door”, from a 1968 mass-market paperback called O. Henry’s Short Stories. It was originally placed in Henry’s 1906 short-story collection The Four Million.

     It opens with several paragraphs addressed directly to the reader in a formal second-person conversational tone, presenting a highly unusual scenario of a beckoning adventure, then pointing out that most people would ignore the call to action. Our narrator then continues on for several more paragraphs in defining what a “true and pure adventurer” was, and then begins the story in third-person limited, but going inside our main character’s thoughts and impulses. Our narrator tells us that Rudolf Steiner, music-store piano salesman, was one of these true adventurers, who go out on journeys and quests with no goal in mind other than seeing what will happen.

     Rudolf sets out one night walking with nowhere in particular to go, as he does most nights, and a man handing out a dentist’s business cards gives him one with a message marked upon it: “The Green Door”. Rudolf wonders a bit, then walks by the man again. “The Green Door”.  He flips over some of the discarded cards on the nearby sidewalk. They all feature the dentist. Rudolf enters the nearby apartment building and explores around the top floor, seeing a green door lit almost in a halo. Our adventurer takes this for a sign and knocks upon the door, which is opened by a beautiful and very ill young girl, who immediately faints. Rudolf picks her up and carries her to a couch, noticing the cleanliness and poverty of the apartment. The girl explains that she is out of work due to illness and hasn’t had money to eat in three days, whereupon Rudolf buys groceries for the girl and promises to check on her the next morning. The story implies that they will become a couple. As Rudolf leaves, he notices that every door in the building is painted green. He then asks the man what the “Green Door” cards mean; it turns out they are advertising a play.

     In this way, Henry illustrates in his memorable way that most happenings in life, both good and bad, come about by taking chances and seeking to seize opportunities. Fortune may not always follow the brave, but those who are courageous have a better chance of finding happiness. There is a large element of fate involved with any decision or action we undertake, and coincidence is often the means fate chooses to work through. Adventure should be accepted whenever the chance comes. You get good material to work with writing them down afterward.