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"The Ransom of Red Chief" is a short story by O. Henry first published in the July 6, 1907 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. It follows two men who kidnap and demand a ransom for a wealthy man's son. Eventually, the men are overwhelmed by the boy's spoiled and hyperactive behavior, so they pay his father to take him back.
- O. Henry
- 1907
The Ransom of Red Chief is a fine example of O. Henry's use of irony. First published in The Saturday Evening Post in 1902. Bill and Sam sure didn't anticipate the lesson they learned, "Crime sure doesn't pay!" In fact, it'll cost you plenty. It looked like a good thing: but wait till I tell you.
The Ransom of Red Chief, short story by O. Henry, published in the collection Whirligigs in 1910. In the story, two kidnappers make off with the young son of a prominent man only to find that the child is more trouble than he is worth; in the end, they agree to pay the boy’s father to take him.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
The Ransom of Red Chief Summary. Bill and Sam, two petty criminals looking for an easy two thousand dollars, hatch a plot to kidnap and hold for ransom Johnny, the 10-year-old son of Ebenezer Dorset, a wealthy pillar of the community.
Imagination and Play. Justice. Outsiders. Summary. Analysis. The narrator, Sam, and his friend Bill are down in Summit, Alabama (a town as “flat as a flannel-cake”) when they are struck with the idea for the kidnapping. The two men need two thousand dollars to pull off a real estate scheme in Illinois.
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In “The Ransom of Red Chief,” O. Henry explores themes of Violence and Cruelty, Morality and Greed, and Desperation for Freedom through two career con men, Sam and his partner, Bill Driscoll. The story takes place in Alabama in the early 1900s and is narrated from Sam’s first-person point of view.
