Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Satirical
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 plays on that struggle to decide whose side we are on. We know that Sam and Bill are criminals—they tell us as much when Sam claims "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" (3). We know that kidnapping a ten-year-old boy is simply not funny… except when that boy holds all the cards.
Johnny should be a victim, "a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the color of the cover of the magazine you buy at the news-stand when you want to catch a train" (4). But he's also living in a world of make-believe. Sam and Bill are not only railroaded by something that comes naturally to a child, but also powerless to show any effective resistance to it. So their behavior, which should be awful, doesn't hurt anyone but themselves. We actually end up feeling a little sorry for them, and even rooting for their efforts. We're going completely against the grain of what we should be feeling, and in the process are able to take a look at our own petty schemes and shortcomings as well. That's the essence of satire, and its effect is certainly not lost in "The Ransom of Red Chief."