After Soapy fails to get himself arrested for harassing a young woman in front of a police officer, the narrator captures his experience using both a metaphor and a paradox, as seen in the following passage:
With the young woman playing the clinging ivy to his oak Soapy walked past the policeman overcome with gloom. He seemed doomed to liberty.
In the first sentence, the narrator metaphorically compares the young woman—who, it turns out, is a sex worker—to “clinging ivy” and Soapy to an oak tree. This metaphor helps readers understand how, rather than feeling threatened by Soapy’s advances, the woman reciprocates them, as she is a sex worker hoping to earn some money. Even as Soapy walks away, the woman “clings” to him the way ivy clings to trees. This metaphor communicates how the sex worker's desperation to earn income is similar to Soapy’s desperation to get arrested, demonstrating how both of these impoverished “criminals” are just trying to survive.
The paradox in this passage is found in the narrator’s contradictory statement that Soapy “seemed doomed to liberty.” The contradiction emerges from the fact that most people—including Soapy—strive to have liberty and often feel doomed not to have it. The statement makes sense, of course, in the context of the story—“liberty” for Soapy means living (and quite possibly dying) on the freezing streets of New York, whereas confinement means having access to warm living conditions and consistent meals (in prison). This paradox is O. Henry’s way of highlighting how so-called “liberty” is not experienced the same way for people of different socioeconomic classes in the United States.
As Soapy is listening to the church’s anthem near the end of the story, he is overcome by a sense of possibility for his future and regret about his past. In this moment, the narrator metaphorically compares Soapy’s life to a “pit” he has fallen into, as seen in the following passage:
The conjunction of Soapy’s receptive state of mind and the influences about the old church wrought a sudden and wonderful change in his soul. He viewed with swift horror the pit into which he had tumbled, the degraded days, unworthy desires, dead hopes, wrecked faculties and base motives that made up his existence. And also in a moment his heart responded thrillingly to this novel mood.
In this moment of mental clarity, Soapy looks at his life and sees it as a pit into which he has “tumbled,” resulting in “degraded days,” “dead hopes,” and other negative experiences. This metaphor is notable, as it implies that Soapy is blaming himself for his unemployed and homeless status. Rather than viewing people with power as having pushed him into a pit of misfortune (via unjust policies), Soapy sees himself as having “tumbled” in there of his own accord. This way of interpreting his situation is in alignment with the dominant narrative of the American Dream and the idea that people should be able to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps if they really want to succeed.
It is notable that, though Soapy’s “heart respond[s] thrillingly” to the idea that he can turn his fate around, the story indicates that this will not be possible for him. Despite Soapy’s newfound commitment to changing his life—plus the resourcefulness he’s demonstrated throughout the story—he is arrested by a police officer at the end of the story and sentenced to more time in prison. This is O. Henry’s way of suggesting that the American Dream—and class ascension—may not be as attainable as some people believe.
