Summing up the analysis of the story I must say that O. Henry brilliantly uses different stylistic devices such as metaphors, epithets, personification, simile, hyperbole etc. which help to reveal the main character’s nature, to create a true-to-life atmosphere of the events depicted and to give the reader food for thought. Personally I liked this story immensely as it shows that love and relationships demands truth and mutual feelings, but egoism, pride and vanity can only ruin it.

The plot of the story begins with the introduction (the first paragraph) where the reader is prepared for the intrigue, the exposition where the main character is introduced, the story itself where all thoughts and recollections of the main character take place, the climax when the bride’s brother asked Trysdale where he raked up that cactus and whether he knew Spanish; and the anticlimax or the denouement is at the very end of the story when Trysdale got to know what the word on the tag meant and what his fault was.

The given story is rather a mixture of narration and description with some insertions of dialogue and flashbacks to the past.

From the point of view of presentation the text is the 3^rd person narrative.

The characters we meet in the story under analysis are a young man Trysdale who is the main character, the girl who loved him and her brother and Trysdale’s friend. The author reveals Trysdale by means of direct and indirect characterisation. A lot of stylistic devices mentioned above are used to describe the main character. He is obviously narcissistic, vain and conceited man, who lost his happiness because of these vices. O. Henry reveals the girl by means of direct and indirect characterisation as well. She had “convincing beauty – the careless wave of her hair, the tenderness and virginal charm of her looks and words”, “how glad, how shy, how tremulous she was”. So, we can say that she was beautiful and coy, but naive. She just fell in love with a person who probably wasn’t worth her. There is a very accurate simile “she fluttered like a snared bird” as “she had always insisted upon placing him upon a pedestal”, although “he had absorbed the oblation as a desert drinks the rain that can coax from it no promise of blossom or fruit”. The author reveals the third character through indirect characterisation. According to his dialogue we can say that he was not very clever, as he tried to ease his conscience with brandy. But he was probably a good brother as he felt pity for his sister who got married with a man she didn’t love.

The events in the analysed story happen in Trysdale’s bachelor apartments after the marriage ceremony of a girl he was going to marry but he’d lost her. While standing there and putting his gloves off he tries to understand why it’s happened. Trysdale is filled with bitterness and perplexity. He analyses himself and is deeply wrecked by his own egoism and vanity. A wave of recollection overwhelms and hurts him. To describe Trysdale’s morale more vividly a lot of stylistic devices are used:  epithets “a swift, scarifying retrospect”, “this last hopeless point of view”, “poor consolation”, “fatuous and tardily mourned egoism”; oxymoron “sullen exultation”; personifications “the drawling words”, “binding her to another”, “all the garbs of pretence and egoism...now turn to rags and folly”, “allow his mind to dwell upon the memory”; metaphors “all the garbs of pretence and egoism”, “the garments of his soul”; enumeration “his own innermost, unmitigated, arid unbedecked self”; hyperbole “for the thousandth time”; rhetorical questions “Vanity and conceit?”, “Why had it ended thus?”; detached construction “for the pain of it”; and aposiopesis “But why –”, “There had been no quarrel between them, nothing – ”. Trysdale realizes that his girlfriend worshiped him. To underline her attitude to him such stylistic devices are used: epithets “sweet and flattering admiration”, “very sweet incense”; polysyndeton “so modest, so childlike and worshipful, and so sincere”; hyperbole “she had invested him with almost supernatural number of high attributes and excellencies and talents” etc. Trysdale took her admiration for granted as the guiding principle of his life is vanity. To emphasize such behaviour of the main character the simile and personification are used: “...and he had absorbed the oblation as a desert drinks the rain that can coax from it no promise of blossom or fruit”. When Trysdale proposed to the girl he was sure that she would be too eager to accept him. It is emphasized with the help of such stylistic devices as exclamation, inversion, enumeration and polysyndeton: “How glad, how shy, how tremulous she was!” It is expressed also with the help of simile: “how she fluttered like a snared bird”. But the girl said she would send her answer the next day. She did it obviously because of her modesty and coyness. The next day Trysdale desperately waited for her reply. But the girl only sent through her groom a cactus. There was no note, no message, merely a tag upon the plant bearing a barbarous foreign or botanical name which Trysdale simply did not care for. His reaction to it is expressed with the help of metaphor “his large pride and hurt vanity kept him from seeking her”. Two evenings later they met at a dinner, but he was waiting her explanation. The girl’s behaviour is strikingly described with the help of metaphor “she turned to snow and ice”. Trysdale was completely confused and humiliated. It is expressed through rhetorical questions “Where was his fault?”, “Who had been to blame?” and metaphor “the ruins of his self-conceit”.

Suddenly the voice of the other man, Trysdale’s friend and the bride’s brother, intruded upon Trysdale’s thoughts. His friend saw the cactus with the tag and said it was a common cactus in Punta where he lived and that the word on the tag was not a biological name, but a common Spanish word with which the plant is called. That word ‘Ventomarme’ means in Spanish “come and take me”. And only then Trysdale realized his fault at ignoring the tag and the cactus sent by the girl. He’d lost that girl because of his pride and vanity.

The matter is that once she asked him whether it was true that he knew Spanish. It was not true. He just learnt some Spanish phrases and used them to show off. But Trysdale was too proud to tell her the truth. So, that’s why when she sent him that cactus with her romantic reply, he did not understand it and gave her a false impression of being rejected by him. Ironically, Trysdale’s pretence and conceit played a nasty trick on him.

“The Cactus” is devoted to the relationships between men and women. In particular, the author criticizes egoism and conceit. O. Henry points out that these traits are destructive for love and happiness.