Category: Fiction

Originally called Retrieved Reform, this short story was first published more than a century ago in Cosmopolitan magazine. 

A Retrieved Reformation: Summary and Plot Analysis

The story opens in prison, where an inmate, Jimmy Valentine, is diligently working in the prison shoe shop. The man is serving a four-year sentence but is freed much earlier, apparently owing to his outside connections. 

Knowing Jimmy to be a good man, the warden advises him against cracking any more safes and living a decent life. 

He denies all wrongdoing and, although a bit tired, is happy to be 9762, the free man.

On his way to meet a man named Mike Dolan, Jimmy stops at a restaurant to enjoy a meal and a smoke as a free man. 

In a later conversation between Dolan and Jimmy, Dolan apologizes for the delay in securing Jimmy’s release from prison. Jimmy retires to his room and finds it in precisely the same condition it was left in. 

He quickly checks and locates his high-quality, safe cracking equipment. He soon leaves the apartment in his elegant clothes and a briefcase. Upon being asked, he responds that he was now a Salesman for a famous NY bread and cake company.

A week after Jimmy’s release, a series of robberies surface. Neat, professionally done, with increasingly more significant amounts being stolen. 

This soon catches the attention of Ben Price, a policeman, who notices the distinct nature of these robberies. 

They had Jimmy written all over them.

However, that knowledge was insufficient, given Jimmy worked alone and had great connections.

Not much later, Jimmy finds himself in Elmore, where he is at a bank, when he sees a beautiful young woman named Annabel Adams. Adams happens to be the banker’s daughter. Jimmy is smitten. He is later seen enquiring about the woman as well as any openings for the shoe business. 

He is a changed man, literally. He takes up the identity of one Ralph Spencer, opens a town shoe business, and flourishes. 

Jimmy and Annabel are engaged to be married soon.

Jimmy, set on a fresh new start, sends a letter for an old trusted friend to come to visit him so that he can hand over his tools. 

Unknown to him, Ben Price soon comes to the town, spots Jimmy, and discovers that he is soon to marry the banker’s daughter. Price plans to visit the bank soon while Jimmy is thinking of getting himself a wedding suit and a gift for Annabel. 

Before leaving, he stops by his father-in-law’s bank to see the newly-installed safe. One of Annabel’s sister’s kids gets trapped in the safe. 

Panic ensues, and with little time to act, Jimmy calls for his suitcase and, within minutes, expertly cracks the safe and saves the child.

The public display of these safe-cracking skills made him feel exposed. He no longer feels fit to live in Elmore or marry Annabel.

As he leaves the bank, he notices Ben Price and offers to come along. To his surprise, Price acts as if he doesn’t know who Jimmy is, responding with, “Guess you are mistaken, Mr. Spencer. Don’t believe I recognize you.”

The story leaves a great aftertaste. After all, who doesn’t like a fresh start?

In 10 minutes, I shall cross the central, southern, and middle western states and be legging it trippingly for the Canadian border.

What comes to mind when you read this? Hot air balloons? Spaceships? Science fiction?

The answer will come to you in the form of Ransom of the Red Chief, a short story by celebrated American author William Sidney Porter, commonly known as O.Henry. 

First published in Saturday Evening Post in 1907, this story captures, in its very essence, a kidnapping gone awry.

Ransom of the Red Chief: Summary and Plot Analysis

The story opens with a scheme. A scheme, in the making, by two small-time criminals – Sam, the mastermind, also the narrator of the story, and Bill, his accomplice.

Their scheme to make a quick buck is simple – kidnapping a wealthy man’s kid and demanding ransom for his release.

The boy’s father is Ebenezer Dorset, a respectable mortgage fancier and forecloser.

The execution of the scheme is even simpler than the kidnapping plan – Bill and Sam, in their buggy, entice the boy with a promise of a bag of candies and a nice ride.

The plan is executed successfully.

Kidnappers and the boy reach their hideout soon after, and that’s when the early signs of the plan’s unraveling are seen. Instead of being scared, the boy enjoys the company of his kidnappers. It does not take long for the boy’s role-playing and demands to surface.

The first role he plays is of the Red Chief, the terror of the plains, unleashing the terror, true to its name.

When not terrorizing Bill and Sam, he frustrates them with his constant chatter and relentless and mostly unreasonable demands and pranks – a couple of which are to ride on Bill as if he was a horse, for 90 miles no less and scalping Bill for real, pulling his hair out with all his might.

The role playing, fun for the boy, is a disaster for the kidnappers.

The kidnappers, eager to rid themselves of this liability/threat to their life, soon plan to reach out to Mr. Dorset, letting him know that he was being held for ransom and that no harm would befall the kid if the father provided them with 1500 dollars peacefully.

Little did they know the response to their letter would be an extension of their nightmare.

Fully aware of the boy’s intolerable, patience-thinning talents, the father, instead of sending the required sum, offers to take the child off the kidnapper’s hands – if they paid him $250.

The harrowed kidnappers, eager to rid themselves of this living nightmare, jump on the offer, and proceed for a swift handover – of the money and the boy.

The boy, funnily enough, tries to cling to the kidnappers instead of his own father.

The Ransom of the Red Chief: Review and My Thoughts

This brought back memories of one of my Christmas favorite movies, Home Alone #3. I always marvel at how talented the kid was at protecting himself- his insane knowledge of physics behind all the levers and pulleys used for trapping his victims would put my whole eighth-grade physics class to shame. 

But O.Henry’s Red chief was a class apart. He made me believe you don’t need intelligence to drive someone insane. Non-stop blabbering and treating adults as enslaved people is good enough.

I just loved the boy’s character. He knew no fear. Instead of being scared for his life and crying his eyes out, he had a lot of fun in addition to showing his kidnappers some great time. He made the most of his ‘trip,’ doing nothing else but being himself. 

Talk about seeing the glass half full!

There is a very famous quote by Dickens “Child is the father of the man.”

I can’t say about anyone else, but this Red Chief definitely is.

Friendship between man and woman is impossible because there must be sexual intercourse.

If you thought this was straight from the Meg Ryan-movie When Harry met Sally, you are as wrong as I was. This is a quote from a short story A Painful Case by famed Irish author James Joyce. 

This was featured in his short story collection called Dubliners, first published in 1914.

A Painful Case: Summary and Plot Analysis

The story revolves around a middle-aged man, Mr.Duffy, who lives a basic but organized life in Chapelizod. He is a man who worships routine – goes to the same restaurants, does the same daily commute, and occasional visits to opera or concerts.

He doesn’t have friends and only visits relatives occasionally, mainly at Christmas or funerals.

On one of his visits to the opera, he strikes up a conversation with a Mrs. Sinico, another audience member, whom her daughter accompanied.

After several such engagements, Mr. Duffy sets a time and place to meet Mrs. Sinico.

It turns out Mrs. Sinico’s husband is a Merchant navy captain and is away from home for long periods. Her being married makes Mr. Duffy uncomfortable carrying on their engagements, but he does so regardless, at her home.

Mr. Sinico assumes his visits to be merely an attempt to court their daughter and doesn’t have the slightest clue that it’s his wife who is of interest to Mr.Duffy.

Mr Duffy and Mrs Sinico continue to meet until one day, when Mrs. Sinico betrays her emotions by holding his hand to her cheek. Mr Duffy,not used to display of affection such as this, retracts, feeling that Mrs. SInico misinterpreted their companionship. He cuts off the relationship, by stopping his visits, and meeting Mrs. Sinico one final time – in a neutral territory, a cake shop. He breaks it off and Mrs Sinico’s emotional response to such a news makes him uncomfortable and he leaves quickly.

Mr. Duffy and Mrs. Sinico continue to meet until one day when Mrs. Sinico betrays her emotions by holding his hand to her cheek. 

Mr. Duffy, not used to the display of affection such as this, retracts, feeling that Mrs. Sinico misinterpreted their companionship. 

He cuts off the relationship by stopping his visits and meeting Mrs. Sinico one final time – in neutral territory, a cake shop. He breaks it off, and Mrs. Sinico’s emotional response to such news makes him uncomfortable. He leaves quickly.

He goes back to living his organized, monotonous life. 

Four years later, one evening, while having dinner, he reads a newspaper article. Surprised, he stops eating and hurries home. 

The article mentions a painful case. The case of a woman, a Mrs. Sinico, who was hit by a train at a Dublin railway station. 

The coroner’s investigation and witness accounts corroborate that her death would have been more because of mental pains than physical. 

Over the last two years, she had grown increasingly distant from her husband and turned to alcohol. 

Noone was deemed responsible for her death.

A Painful Case: Review, Quotes and My Thoughts

My knee-jerk reaction to reading this was to brand Mr. Duffy – a lunatic, if not an as**ole.

Why would you let go of something so special to you? 

Why would you deny yourself shade in the desert? 

And why would you shy away from the company that makes you feel alive and engaged?

At first glance, he did seem like someone with a severe commitment phobia. But not surprisingly, the guy has a layered personality. How could he be cozy with someone else if he looks at himself from a distance?

He lived at a little distance from his body, regarding his own acts, with doubtful side glances.

He had an odd autobiographical habit which led him to compose in his mind from time to time, a short sentence about himself containing a subject in the third person and a predicate in the past tense.

The more I re-read, the more I felt sorry for him.

He had neither companions nor friends, church nor creed. He lived his spiritual life without communion with others, visiting his relatives at Christmas and escorting them to the cemetery when they died.

Now, I tried to seek solace in that he liked to do that; he liked to be alone. Human company to him was like the plague. He would rather be by himself and live an adventureless, strictly by the book life. 

But there are clues throughout the story that it wasn’t the case.

While they talked, he tried to fix her permanently into his memory.

Little by little he entangled his thoughts with hers. He lent her books, provided her with ideas, and shared his intellectual life with her.

Would you do or think all that if you were trying to avoid someone? 

He seemed shaken reading about her death in the papers. A painful case, they call it.

Mrs. Sinico’s pain ended at the train station. 

As for Mr. Duffy, I would never know.