ransom of red chief
The Ransom of Red Chief is one of my favorite O. Henry stories. Always the master of comic irony, Henry is at the top of his form in this story of two incompetent would-be kidnappers, Sam Howard and Bill Driscoll. The story is told in the first person by protagonist Sam, whose grand vocabulary and self important attitude helps set the stage for the major fall he and his partner Bill take when they capture a malevolent red-headed hellion, Johnny Dorset (a worthy antagonist), and attempt to hold him for ransom.
“Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strong in semi-rural communities; therefore and for other reasons, a kidnapping project ought to do better there than in the radius of newspapers that send reporters out in plain clothes to stir up talk about such things… So, it looked good.” It soon becomes apparent that Sam and Bill have completely misjudged the situation. O. Henry brings together humor and irony as the story unfolds in a series of comic reversals. Soon, the kidnappers are the hostages, trapped by the talkative, violent, and relentless Johnny, who proclaims himself to be “Red Chief , terror of the plains”. The action builds, with the conflict between Red Chief and his captors culminating with an unsuccessful attempt by Bill to kick the “victim” down the road and back home. The tone of the story is entertaining and humorous. O. Henry’s characters are exaggerated stereotypes; the bumbling criminals and the wild antics of Red Chief are larger than life. It is literary slapstick at its best. Ironic humor is threaded throughout the story, from the name of the small, “flat as a flannel-cake” town, Summit, to the non-reaction of the town to the loss of one of its own sons. Sam describes looking over the town, where he expects to see the citizens conducting a panicked search for Johnny. I love the way that alliteration and the lamb-wolf metaphor draws attention to the ridiculous situation that Sam finds himself in:
“There was a sylvan
“Philoprogenitiveness, says we, is strong in semi-rural communities; therefore and for other reasons, a kidnapping project ought to do better there than in the radius of newspapers that send reporters out in plain clothes to stir up talk about such things… So, it looked good.” It soon becomes apparent that Sam and Bill have completely misjudged the situation. O. Henry brings together humor and irony as the story unfolds in a series of comic reversals. Soon, the kidnappers are the hostages, trapped by the talkative, violent, and relentless Johnny, who proclaims himself to be “Red Chief , terror of the plains”. The action builds, with the conflict between Red Chief and his captors culminating with an unsuccessful attempt by Bill to kick the “victim” down the road and back home. The tone of the story is entertaining and humorous. O. Henry’s characters are exaggerated stereotypes; the bumbling criminals and the wild antics of Red Chief are larger than life. It is literary slapstick at its best. Ironic humor is threaded throughout the story, from the name of the small, “flat as a flannel-cake” town, Summit, to the non-reaction of the town to the loss of one of its own sons. Sam describes looking over the town, where he expects to see the citizens conducting a panicked search for Johnny. I love the way that alliteration and the lamb-wolf metaphor draws attention to the ridiculous situation that Sam finds himself in:
“There was a sylvan