The Cop and the Anthem

Weren't there really six ways in which Soapy tried to get arrested? He stole a man's umbrella in a cigar store, but the man wouldn't call the cop who was standing right nearby because the supposed...

O. Henry seems to have been a little careless about giving titles to his stories. Many of the titles could be improved on. No doubt he wrote the stories first and thought about titles later. He...

Soapy tries many times to get arrested. Winter is coming on, and he knows he can get sentenced to three months in a warm jail on Blackwell's Island with three meals a day for committing a...

Soapy is an unusual type of bum. He might be called a "gentleman-bum." At one time he was a member of the middle class. He still retains the speech and manners of a gentleman, and he does his best...

He has a good dinner at a fancy restaurant and doesn't pay for it. We get the impression that Soapy's done this before as he seems to know exactly how the scam works. (Or should work, at any rate)....

O.Henry's stories always have a moral undercurrent that is often hidden beneath layers of irony. In this short story the central character, Soapy, is a homeless man with a need for winter shelter...

As O. Henry details in "The Cop and the Anthem," Soapy has no desire to take advantage of charity, much preferring to spend the winter months in prison. As the story tells it: In Soapy's opinion...

Soapy has obviously had years of experience surviving as a homeless man in New York. He sleeps on a park bench which, because of his seniority and dignity, is considered reserved for him by the...

O. Henry himself had served three years in a state penitentiary for embezzlement, and he had never gotten over the experience. He wrote under a pseudonym because he was trying to hide from his...

The music that Soapy hears at the church would not have had such a strong effect on him had it not been for the fact that he had been trying so hard to get himself arrested and sent to jail for the...

Soapy, the central character in O'Henry's story "The Cop and the Anthem," is a homeless man in New York City who reasons that if he could only get himself arrested, he would be imprisoned on...

After Soapy enters a restaurant that caters to "large appetites and modest purses" where he is allowed to sit down despite having worn pants and shoes that denoted his poverty. Having eaten a full...

Soapy is definitely the main character and the protagonist in "The Cop and the Anthem." He is not the narrator. The narrator is the very familiar "third-person anonymous" voice who knows a lot...

"The Cop and the Anthem" is one of O. Henry's best and most frequently anthologized short stories. Typically of his stories, it is set in New York City. Soapy is characterized as a thoroughly...

In the short story "The Cop and the Anthem" by O. Henry, the homeless man Soapy tries desperately to commit a crime that will land him a few months of prison time at Blackwell's Island (a former...

The cop and the anthem represent, respectively, false and genuine salvation. Soapy the tramp wants to get sent to prison so that he'll have somewhere nice and warm to stay over the winter, thus...

Another conflict dominates in the story, and it is the conflict of man versus self. Soapy's internal struggle centers on his warring selves: is he Soapy the criminal or Soapy the respectable...

At the beginning of the story, a falling leaf and a chill in the air alert Soapy to the fact that winter is coming. Soapy has been sleeping in Madison Square, but it is now becoming too cold to...

In O Henry's short story, "The Cop and the Anthem," winter symbolizes change. Based upon Soapy's newly revived sense of self near the end of the story, we can see where he is ready for change to...

There are two methods of creating and developing characters that are employed by authors: 1. direct characterization, a statement by the author of the character's traits2. indirect...

The quotation about Soapy's "hibernatorial ambitions" refers to his plans for the staying indoors during the winter. These plans are not grandiose; rather, they are quite simple. A homeless man who...

It would be helpful if you asked a specific question about this story. Generally speaking, the story is a typical O. Henry one, full of irony. Soapy tries unsuccessfully to get arrested six...

One of the themes in "The Cop and the Anthem" has to do with survival. Every living creature has to struggle to obtain a niche in which it can survive on this crowded, spinning planet. With humans...

What we learn from "The Cop and the Anthem" is very similar to what we learn from O. Henry's story "A Retrieved Reformation." Once a person has started down the wrong road in life, it is very...

Soapy's experience has taught him that there were always strings attached to the hospitality of charitable institutions. From what the narrator tells us, it appears that the charitable institutions...

Early in the story, the author O. Henry notes, "The hibernatorial ambitions of Soapy were not of the highest. In them there were no considerations of Mediterranean cruises, of soporific...

The point of view in O. Henry's short story "The Cop and the Anthem" is third-person omniscient. The story is told in the third person (as Soapy, the main character, is referred to by his name...

While the elevated style of O. Henry's narrator is imitative of the former gentleman, Soapy, and lends irony to the story of a homeless man who seeks shelter for the winter, the point of view is...

Soapy is a homeless man who realizes that winter is coming; therefore, he devises a plan to ensure that he will stay warm throughout the winter. He decides that he will get himself arrested so...

As part of his hare-brained scheme to get arrested and sent to prison for the winter, Soapy attempts to steal a silk umbrella from a well-dressed man in a cigar store. As Soapy walks off with the...

The key irony is that Soapy, the main character, is trying to get thrown into jail so that he can have a warm place to stay but cannot seem to get arrested for a series of attempts at being a minor...

In this short story, Soapy clearly does think the law is more useful than philanthropy, at least for his purposes. Soapy is trying to get himself a good place to stay as winter approaches New York...

O. Henry's short story "The Cop and the Anthem" does, indeed, depict the callousness and detached attitudes of many urban people. When Soapy enters the restaurant the head waiter immediately...

The words about "sailing away," and "southern skies" are contained in an early paragraph of the story. The hibernatorial ambitions of Soapy were not of the highest. In them there were no...

After several failed attempts to get himself arrested, Soapy spots what looks like an ideal opportunity. In a cigar store he saw a well-dressed man lighting a cigar at a swinging light. His silk...

"The Cop and the Anthem" is one of O. Henry's best and most typical stories. Two devices he uses to make his story interesting and effective are irony and humor, both of which are characteristic of...

In implying that Blackwell’s Island is a hospitable place, the narrator is using irony, which is the primary device that the author employs throughout the story. Blackwell’s Island is the location...

Soapy has a particular goal in life, and he's absolutely determined to achieve it. With the winter coming on, this vagabond needs to find a warm place to stay during the cold weather. He figures...

O.Henry's short stories are quick and easy to read, so to compose a summary is almost redundant. In a nutshell, Soapy is a homeless man in New York City at the beginning of the 20th century who...

One of Soapy's major weaknesses is his lack of ambition. He wants no more than just to sit and be cared for and otherwise left alone; his "hibernatorial ambitions...were not of the...

"The Cop and the Anthem" follows the misadventures of Soapy, a homeless man, while winter begins its approach. Due to the harshness of the winter conditions, Soapy determines to get himself...

Soapy has been committing and attempting to commit petty crimes in the hope of being arrested and sentenced to three months in jail. He has been doing the same thing every year in the late fall and...

In the latest of his failed efforts to get sent to prison for the winter, Soapy tries to enter a restaurant, where he plans to eat lots of food then refuse to pay the bill. Yet as soon as the head...

"The Cop and the Anthem" contains situational irony. This is the type of irony in which the opposite of what the reader thinks will happen actually does happen. For example, when Soapy is carrying...

O. Henry’s short story, “The Cop and the Anthem,” tells of Soapy, a homeless man living on the streets of New York. He notices the signs of the upcoming winter: Birds begin to fly south. Women who...

In the first paragraph of "The Cop and the Anthem," we're given a number of clues that winter is approaching and that Soapy will soon need to find a warm place to rest his weary bones. Birds are...

The quick answer is that Soapy fears the onset of winter, considering that he is homeless and lives on the street. On the previous night three Sabbath newspapers, distributed beneath his coat,...

"Come" is actually part of a verb phrase in the example from O. Henry's story. The combination of a "be" verb and "come" is called an unaccusative intransitive verb. Even though that term is a...

"The Cop and the Anthem" was first published in 1905. That was well over a century ago, and America was much different. There was no electric lighting, no automobiles, no indoor plumbing. O. Henry...

Several police officers in O’Henry’s story can be characterized as incredulous, careful, and efficient. When Soapy throws a rock through a shop window, a nearby officer does not arrest him. The...