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The housekeeper, who is named Mrs. Purdy, is the landlady of the house where the young man rents his room. The young man dislikes the housekeeper as soon as he meets her, reflecting that she resembles a worm that has hollowed out her home and seeks to devour the lodgers she lures inside. This impression is not altogether inaccurate: the housekeeper sees her residents as sources of income rather than as people. She discusses Eloise Vashner’s suicide in the furnished room as a threat to her business instead of a personal tragedy, and she refuses to reveal Eloise’s past presence in the house to the young man because it might cause him to reject the room. Even when the young man asks about Eloise, she conceals the truth and diverts the conversation to present her house as respectable. She frequently interrupts conversations to emphasize that a couple who stayed in one room had a marriage certificate, and to boast of the famous vaudeville stars who have rented from her. The housekeeper acts throughout the story as a representative of urban capitalism, acting solely to benefit her business of letting rooms. At the end of the story, her friend Mrs. McCool asserts that renting rooms is how women like the housekeeper stay alive, suggesting that the housekeeper is controlled by the same capitalist systems that cause her selfishness.
Housekeeper Quotes in The Furnished Room
The The Furnished Room quotes below are all either spoken by Housekeeper or refer to Housekeeper. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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The Furnished Room
Quotes
To the door of this, the twelfth house whose bell he had rung, came a housekeeper who made him think of an unwholesome, surfeited worm that had eaten its nut to a hollow shell and now sought to fill the vacancy with edible lodgers.
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Get LitCharts A+[Theatrical people] comes and goes. A good proportion of my lodgers is connected with the theatres. Yes, sir, this is the theatrical district. Actor people never stays long anywhere. I get my share. Yes, they comes and they goes. [...] Them stage people has names they change as often as their rooms. They comes and they goes.
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He ran from the haunted room downstairs and to a door that showed a crack of light. She came out to his knock. He smothered his excitement as best he could.
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It was Mrs. McCool’s night to go with the can for beer. So she fetched it and sat with Mrs. Purdy in one of those subterranean retreats where housekeepers foregather and the worm dieth seldom.
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Housekeeper Quotes in The Furnished Room
The The Furnished Room quotes below are all either spoken by Housekeeper or refer to Housekeeper. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
).
The Furnished Room
Quotes
To the door of this, the twelfth house whose bell he had rung, came a housekeeper who made him think of an unwholesome, surfeited worm that had eaten its nut to a hollow shell and now sought to fill the vacancy with edible lodgers.
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Get LitCharts A+[Theatrical people] comes and goes. A good proportion of my lodgers is connected with the theatres. Yes, sir, this is the theatrical district. Actor people never stays long anywhere. I get my share. Yes, they comes and they goes. [...] Them stage people has names they change as often as their rooms. They comes and they goes.
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Explanation and Analysis:
He ran from the haunted room downstairs and to a door that showed a crack of light. She came out to his knock. He smothered his excitement as best he could.
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Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
It was Mrs. McCool’s night to go with the can for beer. So she fetched it and sat with Mrs. Purdy in one of those subterranean retreats where housekeepers foregather and the worm dieth seldom.
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