This is why the kidnapped boy in O . HENRY’s “The Ransom of Red Chief” is the weirdest person ever.
First of all, when he gets kidnapped, instead of running away or frantically asking for help (Like I would’ve done), he decides to throw a brick at the kidnapper’s eye. But when you take a step back and think about it, he’s just a ten-year-old. With a brick. There are two kidnappers and they both are way older than the happy little boy playing with bricks out on the street. And they probably have a lot of experience to aid them in capturing the boy as well because they have, as the story says, “stood by [each other] without batting an eye in earthquakes, fire and flood—in poker games, dynamite outrages, police raids, train robberies and cyclones” (19). … So just attacking his kidnappers with a brick is a really weird decision to make.
Second of all, this boy thinks taking the scalp off of Bill is a good idea. I mean, if he was Make Believe-ing, then I suppose that would be all right, but when Sam wakes up abruptly to find Bill screaming like a girl and the boy on him, holding a knife to his head, that’s… a bit weird (and disturbing too). I even found a quote for this one: “[Sam] was awakened by a series of awful
screams from Bill … and [Red Chief] was industriously and realistically trying to take Bill’s scalp, according to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him the evening before” (15). Ten-year-olds may not be old enough to attack two grown men, but ten-year-olds sure are old enough to know that that first night was a much better opportunity to escape than to further convince the kidnappers that they need to keep an eye on him at all times. Like I said, weird. But, the boy doesn’t seem to want to go back to his home either, which leads to my next point.
Third of all, the boy needs to know that it’s a lot safer in his own house than outside in the wilderness with two kidnappers who are only keeping you for money. I just can’t believe that he would rather stay in the cave and try to damage the kidnappers even more than go home and play with his family and possibly even friends. He literally says, “I never had such fun in all my life” (14). Oh yes, definitely, I would love to camp out with my kidnappers and play games with them and eventually even try to take the scalp out of one of them! It’s still really weird how he’s enjoying all this.
In the end, even the kidnappers would relinquish their dream of receiving two thousand dollars just to give him back to his father, Ebenezer Dorset (And he knows that no one can stand living with the boy). Surely, this means that the kidnapped boy in this story is truly, truly, weird.