The Ransom Of Red Chief 'And The Pedestrian'

“People trust their eyes above all else - but most people see what they wish to see, or what they believe they should see; not what is really there.” This quote, by Zoe Marriott, supports the universal truth conveyed in The Ransom of the Red Chief, a low comedy by O. Henry. Henry uses comic character and comic situation to make his audience laugh whilst portraying the truth that people differ from how they appear to be.

Depth of a story relies greatly on the author’s unique way of conveying a tone. There are many great examples of diction in any genre of literature, whether is be of someone’s feelings, a setting, a mood, a person, or an object. Without it, a story would be dull. Diction connects our senses to the actions, the setting, and the mood of a story, thus enveloping the reader into it, which is exemplified beautifully in “The Scarlet Ibis,” “The Most Dangerous Game,” and “The Necklace.”

Ray Bradbury uses irony to display how the obsession of technology increases the possibility of losing connection with yourself. In The Pedestrian, he displays how an innocent man gets stopped and questioned by the police only because what he was doing appeared unusual. “‘What are you doing out?’ ‘Walking,’ said Leonard... ‘Have you done this often?’ ‘Every night for years.’ The police car sat in the center of the street with its radio throat faintly humming...The back door of the police car sprang wide. ‘Get in.’ ‘Wait a minute, I haven't done anything!’” (Bradbury pg2) Unexpectedly, Leonard Mead gets arrested for doing the unusual- walking around his neighborhood. What would normally seem fine is uncommon in Mr. Mead’s society, because he is the only one who wanders around his neighborhood while everyone else stays in, busy watching television. Bradbury focuses on Mr. Mead’s isolation and dissimilarity to everyone else by indicating how “He would see the cottages and homes with their dark windows, and it was not unequal to walking through a graveyard where only the faintest glimmers of firefly light appeared in flickers behind the windows.” (Bradbury pg1) Bradbury depicts a society in decline; where the houses are like coffins and the people are dead from their addiction to their screens. Mr. Mead is

In the short story “The Pedestrian” Ray Bradbury tells a story of Mr. Leonard Mead who is alone and isolated in newly innovated world of A.D. 2053. In this futuristic society Mr. Mead is no longer needed as a writer, so he then walks over uneven sidewalks for ten years capturing vivid images of the society he currently lives in which is strongly impacted by technology. Throughout the text, Ray Bradbury uses literary devices such as imagery, foreshadowing, and symbolism to reveal how societies may be strongly influenced by the new advances of technology.

Technology has become such a necessity of daily life. In the short story, “The Pedestrian” time is set in the future of 2053 A.D. It is a story about a man who is walking on the sidewalk and gets accused of being mentally mad. Technology isolates people physically from one another because it gives people a way of communicating without being face-to-face and it provides people with anything he or she might need to know.

Ransom of Red Chief and the movie Home Alone have similar events. One event id when both boys burn the criminals. In the short story states “ He put a red hot boiled potato down my back and smashed it”. This shows that in the story Red Chief burns the criminal. In the movie Home Alone Kevin heats up the door handle and when the criminal tries to get in it burns his hand. This shows how Kevin burned one of the criminals. Another event that was similar is when the boys use weapons to hurt the criminals. In the short story “Ransom of Red Chief” the text states “A rock the size of an egg had hit Bill just behind his left ear”. This shows that Red Chief used a weapon in this case a rock to hurt one of the criminals. In the Movie Home

“In the last 50 years, up to 100,000 Americans lost their lives due to inactivity leading to some sort of conditional disease such as heart disease [including the laziness within people of society]” (Wise 12). So many people have died from becoming lazy, doing nothing but go on their phones, devices, rather than doing everyday things. Technology has changed the way society approaches life, always depending on it rather than themselves and others. The society today consists of nothing but TV screens, telephone, smartphones, iPads, and items the 19th century would consider a dream to lay hands on. A book written by Bradbury presents lack of effort people put into their lives and society; Bradbury predicts how the future will become later on in the society. Becoming more similar to the laziness and ignorance in the novel, Fahrenheit 451, the society today struggles the society today struggles with dependency on technology which results to lack of social interactions with one another and failure in becoming literate with books.

It is important to note that Technology leads to relationships being destroyed. One example that proves this how the main character in “The Pedestrian”, Leonard Mead is viewed as an outcast in society for opposing to use technology like everyone else. While Mr. Mead is walking back towards his house he is face to face with a bright light that “...held him fixed like a museum specimen, needle thrust through chest” (Pedestrian 1). Since Mr.Mead is the only person in his

This humorous short story, the amount of irony will make you wonder if it is all just a joke. In the story, “The Ransom of Red Chief,” a man and a woman need $2000 quick. They plan to kidnap a child from a small town named summit. Then they will make a ransom for the child for $2000. But, little do they know that the kid is a huge trouble maker. “The kid was in the street, throwing rocks at a kitten on the opposite fence.” This sets off humorous irony that the kidnappers will find out later on. The kidnappers end up taking the kid after he fights back. Once they get to the cave where they live, Red Chief has a different mood then you would expect. He

Literary terms that are used in books, short stories, essays, and newspapers (etc...) can help the stories come alive. Terms such as similes, metaphors, personifications, allusions, irony, foreshadowing, and imaginary can enrich the story. The stories that contain these types of terms are the unsurpassed stories. The short story, The Most Dangerous Game written by Richard Connell, uses similes and imagery 9oterms to the most effectiveness possible. Richard Connell used similes to associate things to other things to improve the visual conception of the story.

In both, the short story and movie “Ransom of Red Chief” Red Chiefs father wants the kidnappers to pay him to take his son back. In the story they changed the ransom money of $2000 to $1500 because Bill didn’t think the kid was worth that much. Also in both the story and movie Bill and Sam had the same nicknames Red Chief gave them. A clear difference between them both is that in the short story the characters camped in a cave and in the movie they camped in the woods. In the short story Sam went into town to see if people are talking about Red Chief, but in the movie he pays some kids to see about Red Chief.

Many authors of the short story like to focus on the idea of death and or darkness. These traits carry big messages that don’t often require a lot of page space to explain. This is overwhelming important in the genre of short stories when authors have very little page space to work with. At least one of these traits can be seen in the works of authors such as Edgar Allan Poe with The Fall of the House of Usher’s, Nathaniel Hawthorne with The Birthmark, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman in The Yellow Wallpaper.

There is a theme that is for both the movie and the short story that connects them together. The theme for both “Ransom of Red Chief” and “Home Alone” would be Don't let anyone take advantage of you or your things. Evidence that supports this theme on page 64 “Now and then he would let out a war whoop that made Old hank the Trapper shake. That boy had bill terrorized from the start.” This shows home Red Chief got back at Bill and soon to be Sam for kidnapping him and so did Kevin in Home Alone. In Home Alone Kevin had Marv terrorize the same as Bill. Kevin scares Marv throughout the movie by torturing him with his traps.(Home Alone) Red chief scared and torchured Bill by riding him 90 miles on his back. They both scare and hurt the

O. Henry is known for writing and including irony in his writing. In the story, “The Gift of the Magi” He used irony when Della sold her hair to buy her husband, James a watch chain for his watch to replace his leather watch chain for Christmas, but her husband James sold his watch to give Della some beautiful combs for her hair, but both the hair and the watch were gone. They were both very poor and so they had to earn money quickly so they sold their most prized belongings for gifts for each other. The Irony in the story was that they had both bought new and improved accesories for their most prized possessions but for them to afford them, they sold their own prized possession and so when it was time to receive their gifts, They had already lost what they needed for the gift. Della lost her hair for the gold watch chain and james lost the watch for the turtle shell combs.

One exception in this society is Leonard Mead, a writer, who “would walk for hours and miles