30 pages • 1 hour read
O. HenryA Retrieved Reformation
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1903A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Authorial Context: O. Henry
William Sydney Porter, the man who would become O. Henry, brought much of his own life to the more than 600 short stories he wrote between 1899 and his death in 1910. In “A Retrieved Reformation,” he draws on personal experiences—as diverse as a stint working in a bank and several years in prison—to paint a picture of the dapper safecracker Jimmy Valentine and his transformation into the upstanding businessman Ralph D. Spencer.
Porter was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, on September 11, 1862. When he was three, his mother and brother died of tuberculosis. His father was a physician whose drinking and penchant for inventing strange devices made him an inattentive and often absent parent, so he was raised by his grandmother and aunt, who educated him at home. At age 17, Porter began apprenticing in his uncle’s drugstore and eventually became a licensed pharmacist.
In 1881, Porter developed a mysterious cough. Believing that a drier climate might benefit his health, he left for West Texas, where he worked a variety of jobs, including a stint as a ranch hand. Those experiences inspired many of his early stories of the Wild West, including the beloved “The Ransom of Red Chief” (“O. Henry Biography.” Austin History Center, 2023).
Porter eventually moved to Austin, where he became a bank teller. In 1887, he married his first wife, Athol Estes. The couple became parents to a son who died soon after birth and a daughter named Margaret. After Margaret’s birth, Athol’s health declined, and she died of tuberculosis in 1897.
Two years prior, in 1895, Porter was charged with embezzling nearly $4,000 from the bank. To avoid prison, he fled to Honduras. After seven months there, Porter returned to the US because his wife’s health had worsened, although he knew that he would still face charges for embezzlement. After his wife’s death in 1897, Porter was finally tried, found guilty, and sentenced to five years in an Ohio prison.
In prison, Porter wrote many of his best-known short stories. Thanks to his background as a licensed pharmacist, he worked in the prison pharmacy, which allowed him some free time to write. During this time, he began writing under the pen name of O. Henry and sending stories to magazines around the country. “A Retrieved Reformation” was inspired by the experiences of a fellow inmate as well as O. Henry’s own years working in a bank.
In 1901, Porter legally changed his name to O. Henry and moved to New York, where he continued to write stories inspired by his years in North Carolina, Texas, and Honduras. He remarried and moved back to North Carolina in 1907, but soon returned to New York, where he died on June 5, 1910, from complications of diabetes and cirrhosis.
Genre Context: Realism
O. Henry’s short stories are shaped by places and the people who inhabit them, inspired by the author’s own experiences and his observations of daily life in places like rural West Texas, the American Midwest, and the antebellum South. Although O. Henry spent much of his later life in New York, the stories he wrote during that period are still steeped in the details of daily life in small towns and rural communities. Through description and dialogue, O. Henry creates a realistic picture of ordinary people who experience extraordinary things and unexpected turns of fortune:
O. Henry received widespread acclaim because of his trademark tales of gentle, warm-hearted characters and ironic plot twists at the end of the story. These iconic plot transitions were soon referred to as ‘O. Henry Endings’ (Martin, Jonathan. “O. Henry (1862-1910).” North Carolina History Project, 2016).
In that way, O. Henry aligns himself with the literary movement of Realism, which originated in Europe and dominated American fiction in the years between the end of the Civil War and the start of the 20th century. Realism was a rejection of the overdramatic narratives of Romanticism, focusing instead on the mundane events of everyday life as experienced by people in middle- or lower-class environments (“What is Literary Realism?” MasterClass, 2021). Other notable American realists of the time include Mark Twain, Jack London, and Stephen Crane.
“A Retrieved Reformation” begins in a prison in an unnamed city, where Jimmy Valentine is repairing shoes in the prison shoe-shop. Jimmy was arrested in Springfield, which could be any of several middle America towns with that name. Later, Jimmy cracks safes in other places—Richmond, Indiana, Logansport, Jefferson City. With each place named, the story becomes more anchored in its place and time—a century barely begun, with travel accomplished either by rail or by horse and buggy.
Throughout the story, small details of mundane events create atmosphere and impart a sense of reality. In scenes such as Jimmy’s first meal after leaving prison and his first encounter with Annabel at the bank, details create a sense of real-life events. In the final scene, O. Henry recounts simple actions such as breakfast with the Adams family and Jimmy’s quick detour to his rooms to pick up his suitcase full of tools, creating a sense of normalcy that is suddenly broken when Agatha becomes trapped in the vault.
O. Henry’s characters also speak in the colloquial language of their time and place. When the boy in Elmore answers Jimmy’s questions about Annabel, he says, “Naw […] She’s Annabel Adams. Her pa owns this bank. What’d you come to Elmore for? […] Got any more dimes?” (2). And in the final scene, Ben Price tells Jimmy, “Your buggy’s waiting for you, ain’t it?” (4). In this and other O. Henry stories, description and dialogue combine to create a vivid and realistic sense of places and people during the turn of the century.
Literary Context: Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables
In “A Retrieved Reformation,” Jimmy Valentine is reformed by his love for Annabel Adams and finally uses his skill to help someone instead of to commit a crime. The story, as well as Valentine’s interactions with police detective Ben Price, have often been compared to the relationship between bread thief Jean Valjean and Inspector Javert in French author Victor Hugo’s novel Les Misérables (1862).
Although both stories have been adapted for the stage and film, there is a major difference between Hugo’s treatment of reformation and O. Henry’s. In Les Misérables, the Valentine counterpart, Jean Valjean, displays his almost superhuman strength to Inspector Javert while serving years of hard labor. After being paroled, Valjean eventually sets up a new life and identity for himself as a factory owner and mayor. By coincidence, Javert is stationed in his town and, though years have passed, is reminded of the prisoner he once knew. Valjean is called to help rescue a man who is being crushed. Javert witnesses Valjean’s feat of strength to save the man, and the rest of the story revolves around their many encounters and Javert’s attempts to arrest Valjean, who is only truly free after Javert dies by suicide.
In O. Henry’s story, Price witnesses Valentine’s reformation and walks away, allowing Valentine to enjoy his new life. While “A Retrieved Reformation” is shorter than Les Misérables and can therefore support a quicker resolution, any reader familiar with Hugo might be surprised by the ending of “A Retrieved Reformation.” This is fitting as O. Henry is known for his surprise endings.
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