II. Brief account of the essay

In “The Cop and the Anthem”, a tramp named Soapy tries to get arrested so that he can spend the winter in jail, only to find that is not as easy as it used to be.

Soapy did various evil things in order to enter the prison: he ever set foot inside a café for a free meal but he failed; he ever dashed a stone into a glass but the policeman refused to accept Soapy as a clue; then Soapy successfully had a big meal in a restaurant yet he was just beaten instead of being sent to prison ; he ever lured a woman in order to be captured by the policeman but the woman was a prostitute and he failed to be captured by the policeman again; then Soapy began to yell drunken gibberish ,however, the policeman disregarded him as a Yale student and pardoned him; in a cigar store he took a man’ umbrella in public yet that man was not the true owner of it, too ,thus Soapy failed again.

However, when Soapy was greatly moved by the anthem from the church and determined to start a new life, a policeman captured him for being idleness. He was tried 3 months captivity.

From these simple plots concerning Soapy, readers can sense the strong sarcastic atmosphere. The prison became a good place while the hell turned to be a heaven. Evil conducts were given lenient treatment while the good and honest were penalized. Such were the so-called democracy freedom and happiness.

III. Major theme of the essay

The short story “The Cop and the Anthem” can serve as a mirror of the early 20^th-century social reality—a materially rich land yet a spiritually waste land. It is also the theme of appearance versus reality: things are not as they seem, nor do they turn out as expected, even under the most deceptively convincing manifestations. Irony is here the tool enabling O. Henry to switch from pathos within a single story and throughout a series of such stories; and each is designed to entertain his Sunday morning readers with the oddities he found or could imagine to exist among the lowly. Hence, O. Henry reveals and mocks the so-called capitalist democratic human society without human nature.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 936