The Ransom of Red Chief is a short story by the famous author O. Henry. The story is about two makeshift kidnappers, Bill and Sam, trying to make some quick cash off ransom money. They live in a small mountain town called Summit in the early 1900’s. Bill and Sam decide to kidnap the son of Ebenezer Doreset, a wealthy citizen of Summit, but when they take the boy, things don’t turn out as expected. The boy, nicknamed Red Chief, is a massive nuisance. The kidnappers can’t wait to get rid of him. When they finally try to claim their ransom money, an unexpected and interesting twist occurs.

            I thought the story was hard to follow because of the way it was written. The dialogue was confusing and the descriptions were poor. However, it did have a nice theme: things don’t always work out the way you expect them to. I can relate to this because in my life, many things often don’t happen the way I want them to.  Although the story itself is confusing at times, the theme is easily related to.

            The Ransom of Red Chief was published in 1910. Although it didn’t win any awards, it is one of O. Henry’s most famous works. Other short stories by O. Henry include The Gift of the Magi, The Cop and the Anthem, and A Retrieved information. O. Henry was known of his unexpected and surprising twist endings to his tales. He mainly wrote funny short stories. In modern times, the terms her uses can be confusing and make The Ransom of Red Chief hard to understand.

            The Ransom of Red Chief is a short story written by O. Henry in 1910. It is about two men that try to make money of the ransom of kidnapping a young boy. However, their plan goes awry and they end up on the short side of the predicament. The story’s moral is that things don’t always follow the plan and you should expect the unexpected. Because of the difficult to understand writing style, I would not recommend reading the Ransom of Red Chief.