The Ransom of Red Chief

by

O. Henry

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Johnny Character Analysis

Johnny Dorset is the ten-year-old boy whom Sam and Bill kidnap for ransom money. He is the son of Ebenezer Dorset, a prominent townsperson who, it is implied, has been a cold and negligent father to Johnny. Ebenezer’s cruelty has perhaps influenced Johnny’s behavior, as Johnny does things like throw rocks at kittens, physically abuse his captors, and humiliate them. Indeed, upon being kidnapped, Johnny takes charge of the situation, directing Sam and Bill in various avenues of play and terrorizing them with threats real and imagined. While Johnny at first seems troubled and unsympathetic, as the story progresses, it becomes clear that he is imaginative and starved for attention amidst a difficult childhood. Johnny has a powerful imaginative streak, and he roleplays cowboys and Indians with Bill and Sam, taking on the alter ego of Red Chief (a trope now considered racist but which was common and widely-accepted when the story was written). Bill, in particular, bears the burden of Johnny’s care, and he becomes a constant playmate for Johnny, taking Johnny’s abuse with few complaints and delighting Johnny with their games. Playing and camping with Bill and Sam bring a joy to Johnny that seems to have been absent in his family life with his father—Johnny even says of his captivity that “I like this fine. I never camped out before.” After a few days in the cave, the men finally bring Johnny back to his father, paying Ebenezer to take his rambunctious son back rather than receiving ransom money themselves. Reunited, Johnny clings not to his father, but to Bill’s legs, unhappy that his abduction is at an end.

Johnny Quotes in The Ransom of Red Chief

The The Ransom of Red Chief quotes below are all either spoken by Johnny or refer to Johnny . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Crime, Violence, and Empathy Theme Icon
).
The Ransom of Red Chief Quotes

The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll , Ebenezer Dorset
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:

“He's all right now…We're playing Indian.”

Related Characters: Bill Driscoll (speaker), Sam , Johnny
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

“I like this fine. I never camped out before.”

Related Characters: Johnny (speaker), Sam , Bill Driscoll
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

[T]hey were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It's an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:

I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers… There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 193
Explanation and Analysis:

I never lost my nerve yet till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid... it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat.

Related Characters: Bill Driscoll (speaker), Sam , Johnny , Ebenezer Dorset
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 195
Explanation and Analysis:

“You are the hoss,” says Black Scout. “Get down on your hands and knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?”

“You’d better keep him interested,” said I, “till we get the scheme going. Loosen up.”

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny (speaker), Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 196
Explanation and Analysis:

“The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is off. There was martyrs in old times…that suffered death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of 'em ever was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been.”

Related Characters: Bill Driscoll (speaker), Sam , Johnny
Page Number: 198
Explanation and Analysis:

Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on the ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately…

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 198
Explanation and Analysis:

I think you are a little high in your demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree to take him off your hands.

Related Characters: Ebenezer Dorset (speaker), Sam , Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 199
Explanation and Analysis:

We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll , Ebenezer Dorset
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis:

When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as a leech to Bill's leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll , Ebenezer Dorset
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis:
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Johnny Quotes in The Ransom of Red Chief

The The Ransom of Red Chief quotes below are all either spoken by Johnny or refer to Johnny . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Crime, Violence, and Empathy Theme Icon
).
The Ransom of Red Chief Quotes

The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll , Ebenezer Dorset
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:

“He's all right now…We're playing Indian.”

Related Characters: Bill Driscoll (speaker), Sam , Johnny
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

“I like this fine. I never camped out before.”

Related Characters: Johnny (speaker), Sam , Bill Driscoll
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

[T]hey were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It's an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:

I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers… There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 193
Explanation and Analysis:

I never lost my nerve yet till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid... it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat.

Related Characters: Bill Driscoll (speaker), Sam , Johnny , Ebenezer Dorset
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 195
Explanation and Analysis:

“You are the hoss,” says Black Scout. “Get down on your hands and knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?”

“You’d better keep him interested,” said I, “till we get the scheme going. Loosen up.”

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny (speaker), Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 196
Explanation and Analysis:

“The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is off. There was martyrs in old times…that suffered death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of 'em ever was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been.”

Related Characters: Bill Driscoll (speaker), Sam , Johnny
Page Number: 198
Explanation and Analysis:

Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on the ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately…

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 198
Explanation and Analysis:

I think you are a little high in your demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree to take him off your hands.

Related Characters: Ebenezer Dorset (speaker), Sam , Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 199
Explanation and Analysis:

We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll , Ebenezer Dorset
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis:

When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as a leech to Bill's leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll , Ebenezer Dorset
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis: