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After Twenty Years
Set at the turn of the twentieth century in New York City, O. Henry's narrative begins with a policeman walking his regular beat. Twirling his police stick, he checks the locked doors and doorways....
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After Twenty Years
O’Henry is a master of irony. The ironic thing about “After Twenty Years” is that two good friends agree to meet each other later, but one is a cop and the other is a criminal. The cop has to...
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After Twenty Years
O. Henry's ironic story of the twenty year reunion of two old friends, one of whom went West to make his fortune, depicts Bob's having come a thousand miles to meet Jimmy Wells back in New York. As...
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After Twenty Years
Although Bob and Jimmy were best friends as boys, as adults they became two very different types of men. They were both from New York City, and they were only two years apart in age, with Jimmy...
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After Twenty Years
O. Henry does a remarkable job of introducing a major character without actually revealing who he is. The reader is deliberately misled into taking the cop for just one of many uniformed cops...
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After Twenty Years
When an author portrays a character, he uses what he says about the character, what other characters say about him/her, and the actions and words of the character himself. What the author says:...
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After Twenty Years
It tells you a couple of things about Bob. 1. He really considered Jimmy Wells a good friend. He describes Jimmy as "my best chum and the finest chap in the world." He treasured their friendship,...
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After Twenty Years
Darkness is important to this story because it hinges on the fact that "Silky Bob," who is waiting in the darkened doorway of a hardware store for his old friend Jimmy Wells, does not realize that...
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After Twenty Years
In "After Twenty Years," Bob returns to New York, where he last saw his friend, Jimmy. When the two parted ways, they agreed to meet at a particular location in twenty years to see where life had...
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After Twenty Years
The two friends, Jimmy Wells and Bob, have disparate lifestyles, reflecting their contrasting values. These contrasting values are represented by their chosen locales. Jimmy chose to stay in New...
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After Twenty Years
Jimmy is honest and responsible. This is clear for several reasons. As a policeman, he is charged with ensuring the safety of the storefronts on his beat. Although it is rainy and clearly a...
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After Twenty Years
Both the reader and "Silky" Bob are doubly surprised by the ending of the story. Both believe that the plain clothes detective who invites Bob to come along and have a drink with him is Jimmy...
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After Twenty Years
I believe it would be safe to say that the theme of O. Henry's story "After Twenty Years" is an old one: Crime Does Not Pay. O. Henry contrasts two different characters who have two different...
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After Twenty Years
Twenty years is a long time. It is long enough for people who were once young to become middle aged. In this story, two friends were basically still teenagers when they went their separate ways....
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After Twenty Years
'Silky' Bob and Jimmy Wells, longtime friends who have parted ways, agreed to meet again in their favorite restaurant in New York City twenty years later. O. Henry's story begins on the appointed...
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After Twenty Years
Silky Bob and Jimmy Wells are both good friends and keep promises. It is pretty remarkable that both Silky Bob and Jimmy Wells showed up to keep a date made twenty years before. They either are...
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After Twenty Years
Jimmy recognizes his old friend Bob while he talks to him in the doorway of what once was Brady's restaurant. As Bob lights his cigar, Jimmy recognizes the "pale, square-jawed face with keen eyes...
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After Twenty Years
I understood the term "guardian of the peace" to be synonymous with the term "police officer." "Guardian of the peace" or "guardians of the peace" may have been used frequently in newspapers and...
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After Twenty Years
Bob, of course, does not realize he is talking to Jimmy Wells. If he had not told him his friend was "the finest chap in the world" and "the truest, staunchest old chap in the world," Jimmy might...
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After Twenty Years
Bob speaks to the policeman because he doesn’t want his behavior to raise suspicion. Jimmy and Bob have been friends for a long time. They made a date twenty years before to meet on a certain spot...
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After Twenty Years
O. Henry shows great literary skill in his depiction of Jimmy Wells. By introducing him as a cop in uniform patrolling his beat, O. Henry actually succeeds in disguising him. The man we see...
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After Twenty Years
Bob realizes that the man with whom he talks is not Jimmy Wells after they walk under the brilliant electric lights of a drug store. He is startled that this man is a stranger, and he exclaims,...
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After Twenty Years
I would have to agree that the appointment is uncertain. As the narrator describes it; And in the door of the hardware store the man who had come a thousand miles to fill an appointment, uncertain...
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After Twenty Years
In "After Twenty Years," a cop is patrolling the street when he comes upon Bob. Bob explains that he is waiting for his friend, Jimmy. Twenty years before, Bob and Jimmy had dinner together at a...
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After Twenty Years
The quote you mentioned—especially the words "his egotism enlarged by success"—tells us much about Bob's personality and character. Those words highlight Bob's materialistic predilections....
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After Twenty Years
O. Henry's "After Twenty Years" may be interpreted as a tale of friendship since the two old friends both return to their favorite restaurant after twenty years as they have promised each other...
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After Twenty Years
The climax in a story is the peak of emotional intensity. In "After Twenty Years" this peak is reached when Bob and the arresting officver arrive at the corner drug store which is brilliantly...
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After Twenty Years
The main situational irony in "After Twenty Years" involves the fact that Bob is waiting for Jimmy and doesn't realize he is actually talking to him. Then when Jimmy leaves, Bob thinks Jimmy didn't...
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After Twenty Years
As he stands in the doorway, waiting to reunite with an old friend twenty years after they have last been together, the man with the diamond cravate pin appears somewhat anxious. He tells the beat...
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After Twenty Years
Exactly twenty years ago, Bob and Jimmy dined together in a restaurant in New York. Bob was heading west determined to find a job and make his fortune. Jimmy would remain in New York. On that...
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After Twenty Years
The setting of O.Henry's "After Twenty Years" creates a mood of mystery and secrecy. The story takes place at "10 o'clock at night, but chilly gusts of wind with a taste of rain in them had well...
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After Twenty Years
Bob is a very well-dressed man with a large jewel in his necktie. As this would suggest, he's also clearly a very wealthy man, an impression confirmed by his fine pocket watch covered with small...
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After Twenty Years
The area seems to be made up of two-story wooden buildings with shops on the ground floor and offices on the second floor. Property was not as valuable in New York in O. Henry's time. Nowadays the...
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After Twenty Years
"Silky" Bob strikes the policeman Jimmy Wells as a very dapper, well-dressed man. As he stands there waiting in the doorway of "Big Joe" Brady's restaurant, everything about the guy just oozes...
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After Twenty Years
In O. Henry's story "After Twenty Years," Bob has traveled to meet his old "chum" Jimmy after two decades. He waits in the dark doorway of what was once their favorite restaurant, so when a man...
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After Twenty Years
In his final note to Bob, Jimmy writes: I was at the appointed place on time. When you struck the match to light your cigar I saw it was the face of the man wanted in Chicago. Somehow I couldn't...
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After Twenty Years
It seems to me that by using the word "should" in your question you are asking, not what would you do, but what should you do if you were in Jimmy's position. It seems to me that, as much as I feel...
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After Twenty Years
O. Henry's description of Bob's face by the light of his match has a double purpose. First, it is necessary to enable Jimmy to recognize Bob as the man who is wanted by the Chicago police. Second,...
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After Twenty Years
O. Henry wanted to show a contrast between the two principal characters, "Silky Bob" and Jimmy Wells, most of which had evolved over the twenty years since they had last seen each other at "Big...
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After Twenty Years
With irony meaning the contrast between what is expected and what actually happens, this contrast first involves the character 'Silky Bob,' who tells the patrolman who walks his beat that he is...
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After Twenty Years
O. Henry never states what sorts of illegal activities Silky Bob has been up to out West or why the Chicago police want to talk to him. This is evidently because the author wants to mitigate the...
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After Twenty Years
The short story "After Twenty Years" by O. Henry tells the story of two men that used to be friends who meet after twenty years. Jimmy Wells is a policeman out on his beat on a cold night, and Bob,...
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After Twenty Years
Jimmy sends the note to 'Silky Bob' for the same reason that he cannot bring himself to arrest Bob when he recognizes him in the doorway of what used to be 'Big Joe' Brady's restaurant--they once...
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After Twenty Years
It is nearly ten o'clock at night. The weather is rainy and blustery. A uniformed policeman is walking along the sidewalk trying the doors of all the closed shops to make sure they are locked. The...
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After Twenty Years
The man in the doorway has a pale, square-jawed face with keen eyes and a little white scar near his right eyebrow. These details hint at his criminality. In the very next line, we're told that...
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After Twenty Years
The title of “After Twenty Years” is ironic because two old friends are reuniting after a long time, but they are now on opposite sides of the law. When Bob sees Jimmy, he does not recognize him....
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After Twenty Years
"After Twenty Years" is one of O. Henry's shortest stories. It is remarkably effective for such a compact story. It starts close to the climax. Bob tells Jimmy, whom he doesn't recognize, that it...
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After Twenty Years
In After Twenty Years, the place is deserted because of the inclement weather. The author tells us that, despite it being only about ten o'clock at night, the wind and the rain have brought an...
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After Twenty Years
O. Henry is not known for his subtle delineation of character. Both Jimmy and Bob, if not entirely flat, are uncomplicated characters whose psyches are explored very little. On the other hand, they...
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After Twenty Years
O. Henry does not specify where his story is taking place. However, when 'Silky' Bob is talking to the policeman without recognizing him as his old friend Jimmy Wells, Bob reveals the name of the...