"The Ransom of Red Chief" by O. Henry was first released in the August 1, 1907 edition of the American magazine Saturday Evening Post and republished in O. Henry's 1910 story collection Whirligigs. The story is a comedy about two men who kidnap a young boy for ransom. The boy is such a terror that the kidnappers pay the boy's father to take him off their hands. "The Ransom of Red Chief" explores the theme of poetic justice and is rife with O. Henry's situational irony trademark. The short has been adapted for television, film, opera, animation, and radio.
Key Aspects of The Ransom of Red Chief
Tone
Light, humorous.
Setting
Alabama, the early 1900s.
Point of view
The story is narrated...
