The Ransom of Red Chief Analysis

The story is set in Alabama, but it's really more about the time than the place. It could be the Wild West or upstate New York or anywhere in between; what's important about it is its "small townne...

Authors love the first person—it avoids a lot of narrative backflipping—and this story is no exception. O. Henry tells the story from Sam's point of view. It keeps the language simple, due to t...

This is truly a story about the folly of man. Every step of the way we see Sam and Bill commit tiny blunders with Johnny. They see the clues of what's to come, such as when they spy Johnny "throwin...

While we are trying to decide who the heroes and villains are in this story, our own sense of societal rights and wrongs are fighting against our natural inclinations of classification. Good satire...

O. Henry gives us a sympathetic narrator like Sam, someone who talks to us like an old friend and seems to have a tone of casual ease with us. The crime is so matter of fact, and the telling of it...

"The Ransom of Red Chief" is a straightforward title for a straightforward narrative. Red Chief is the name of Johnny's first alter-ego, and indicative of the mess that Sam and Bill are about to ge...

O. Henry loved a good twist, and he delivers one for the ages here in this story. Instead of getting ransom paid to them, the kidnappers have to pay to get rid of their victim:You bring Johnny home...

Sam and Bill are short con specialists, not rocket scientists. O. Henry was a satirist with a touch of the anti-establishment to him, but he wrote for the masses. That means simple, direct (though...

The best laid plans . . . This section starts out with the basic notion: hey, let's kidnap a kid for some quick cash! It establishes the arc of the story, introduces us to the major characters, and...

O. Henry fled to Honduras in 1896, after being indicted for embezzling bank funds. It was during his exile that he first penned the term "Banana Republic" in his short story The Admiral (1904). (S...

There are lot of stories that deal directly with sexuality. This is not one of them. It's a short story about the kidnapping of a ten-year-old boy who tortures his captors. There aren't any fe...

King HerodBill wakes from Johnny's assault with a slingshot, and tells Sam that "his favorite Biblical character" (39) is King Herod. Herod was a Roman-appointed King of the Jews who built the wall...