Compare And Contrast The Cop And The Anthem

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O Henry was best known for his ironic endings in his writing but the plots of his writing wasn’t all similar. The text “The Cop and the Anthem” and “After Twenty Years” are two stories written by O Henry that has similar ending, ironic ending. Both stories have an ironic ending with the characters being arrested but however the reasons and motivations of why each character was arrested was different causing the difference in the plot. In the text “The Cop and the Anthem”, the character, Soapy, had wanted to be arrested which creates a whole ironic plot, while in the text “After Twenty Years”, the character, Bob, was trying to not get arrested, creating a normal plot unliked the text “The Cop and the Anthem”. The text “The Cop and the Anthem” …show more content…

In the text “The Cop and the Anthem”, Soapy's motivation was ironic which causes the whole plot to be ironic. For Soapy, the prison was all positive, the text had stated, “Three month of food every day and a bed every night, three months safe from the cold north wind and safe from cops. This seems to Soapy the most desirable thing in the world.” For Soapy, the prison will provide what he wants so he does all these criminals acts to get the cop to notice him and arrest him. Most part of the plot was about how Soapy does these criminal acts to get arrested. Most people would want to get out of prison unliked Soapy who would do the opposite, this creates an ironic plot. However, in the text “After Twenty Years”, Bob has a normal reaction toward cops as a normal criminal will react. Bob shows hints of his carefulness around cop. In the text, Bob had stated, “‘It’s all right, officer… It sounds strange to you, doesn’t it? I’ll explain if you want to be sure everything is all right.’” Bob keeps emphasizing how everything is all right but this also shows us Bob’s nervousness about cops. All these details shows us how Bob doesn’t wants to be arrested. Bob has a normal motivation creating a more normal plot compared to the text “The Cop and the

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