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In The Story Of A Retrieved Reformation By O. Henry's Summary

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In The Story Of A Retrieved Reformation By O. Henry's Summary
1: In the story of “A Retrieved Reformation” by O. Henry, the warden gives Jimmy serious advice when Jimmy is let out of prison. He tells Jimmy to live right and he is “not a bad fellow at heart”. The warden actually thinks that the criminal has a good heart, although physically Jimmy doesn’t display it very obviously. Jimmy’s response to the wardens advice to “stop cracking safes and live straight”, was sarcastic and playful, “Me? Why, I never cracked a safe in my life”. This reveals that Jimmy is most of the time being funny and playful, showing that Jimmy is a charismatic guy. When the warden does point out the fact that Jimmy has a good heart he is partially right as Jimmy “tossed a quarter into the hat of a blind man”, meaning Jimmy is …show more content…
If the law expects Jimmy to rehabilitate with a five dollar bill and a cheap cigar, they are wrong. A five dollar bill and a cheap cigar is barely enough to last a anyone a day, and without additional funding or education, anyone would be forced to revert back to the life they are trying to escape from. Even if Jimmy was planning on changing, he wouldn’t have been able to without a steady income and a different occupation. When Jimmy does go to back to his criminal ways, the law still blames it on Jimmy when they should be blaming it on …show more content…
Throughout the story, Jimmy suffers internal conflict between his two personas, Jimmy Valentine and Ralph D. Spencer. During the beginning of the story, Jimmy Valentine is the main character until Jimmy goes to a small town named Elmore where he meets a women and “[he] [looks] into her eyes, [forgets] who he [is], and [becomes] another man”. Love overtakes Jimmy as he shifts to his persona of Ralph D. Spencer who is an honest and successful shoe salesman that is in love with Annabel Adams, and has never committed a crime in his life. Later on two weeks away from Ralph and Annabel’s wedding, Mr. Adams buys a new safe and Ralphs future niece, Agatha gets locked within it. Annabel pleads for someone to save her and “with that act Ralph D. Spencer [passes] away and Jimmy Valentine [takes] his place”. After Jimmy saves Agatha he knows that the identity of Ralph was gone, and the internal conflict
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