The Ransom of Red Chief

by

O. Henry

Bill Driscoll Character Analysis

Bill Driscoll is Sam’s partner in crime—together, the two men have committed a string of petty crimes “in poker games, dynamite outrages, police raids, train robberies and cyclones.” In a scheme to collect ransom money, Bill and Sam kidnap Johnny, a troubled local boy. Up in a cave in the woods, Bill is often left as Johnny’s only caretaker while Sam attends to other aspects of the plan. Johnny plays rough and Bill takes plenty of bruising and humiliation. Bill participates in Johnny’s cowboy and Indian fantasies, playing the role of Old Hank, a trapper that Johnny holds captive. As the fantasies evolve, Bill plays Johnny’s horse, Black Scout, which requires allowing Johnny to physically ride Bill while Bill is on his hands and knees—this proves to be a breaking point for Bill. After unsuccessfully trying to send Johnny home himself, Bill is the one who suggests lowering the ransom, and he finally begs Sam to pay the $250 fee that Ebenezer has requested to take his son back. Despite that Bill wants to send Johnny away, he proves himself sympathetic to Johnny—participating in his games and downplaying his difficulties—and he even seems to become a father figure to Johnny. His relationship with Johnny is ultimately touching, even redemptive, as Johnny clings to Bill’s legs at the end, refusing to be returned to his own father.

Bill Driscoll Quotes in The Ransom of Red Chief

The The Ransom of Red Chief quotes below are all either spoken by Bill Driscoll or refer to Bill Driscoll . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Crime, Violence, and Empathy Theme Icon
).
The Ransom of Red Chief Quotes

There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called Summit, of course. It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious and self-satisfied a class of peasantry as ever clustered around a Maypole.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Bill Driscoll
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:

The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll , Ebenezer Dorset
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:

“He's all right now…We're playing Indian.”

Related Characters: Bill Driscoll (speaker), Sam , Johnny
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

“I like this fine. I never camped out before.”

Related Characters: Johnny (speaker), Sam , Bill Driscoll
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

[T]hey were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It's an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:

I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers… There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 193
Explanation and Analysis:

I never lost my nerve yet till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid... it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat.

Related Characters: Bill Driscoll (speaker), Sam , Johnny , Ebenezer Dorset
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 195
Explanation and Analysis:

“You are the hoss,” says Black Scout. “Get down on your hands and knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?”

“You’d better keep him interested,” said I, “till we get the scheme going. Loosen up.”

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny (speaker), Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 196
Explanation and Analysis:

“The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is off. There was martyrs in old times…that suffered death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of 'em ever was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been.”

Related Characters: Bill Driscoll (speaker), Sam , Johnny
Page Number: 198
Explanation and Analysis:

Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on the ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately…

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 198
Explanation and Analysis:

I think you are a little high in your demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree to take him off your hands.

Related Characters: Ebenezer Dorset (speaker), Sam , Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 199
Explanation and Analysis:

We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll , Ebenezer Dorset
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis:

When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as a leech to Bill's leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll , Ebenezer Dorset
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis:
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Bill Driscoll Quotes in The Ransom of Red Chief

The The Ransom of Red Chief quotes below are all either spoken by Bill Driscoll or refer to Bill Driscoll . For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Crime, Violence, and Empathy Theme Icon
).
The Ransom of Red Chief Quotes

There was a town down there, as flat as a flannel-cake, and called Summit, of course. It contained inhabitants of as undeleterious and self-satisfied a class of peasantry as ever clustered around a Maypole.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Bill Driscoll
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:

The father was respectable and tight, a mortgage fancier and a stern, upright collection-plate passer and forecloser.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll , Ebenezer Dorset
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 189
Explanation and Analysis:

“He's all right now…We're playing Indian.”

Related Characters: Bill Driscoll (speaker), Sam , Johnny
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

“I like this fine. I never camped out before.”

Related Characters: Johnny (speaker), Sam , Bill Driscoll
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 190
Explanation and Analysis:

[T]hey were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars. It's an awful thing to hear a strong, desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 192
Explanation and Analysis:

I expected to see the sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks beating the countryside for the dastardly kidnappers… There was a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading that section of the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 193
Explanation and Analysis:

I never lost my nerve yet till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid... it ain't human for anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of freckled wildcat.

Related Characters: Bill Driscoll (speaker), Sam , Johnny , Ebenezer Dorset
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 195
Explanation and Analysis:

“You are the hoss,” says Black Scout. “Get down on your hands and knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?”

“You’d better keep him interested,” said I, “till we get the scheme going. Loosen up.”

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny (speaker), Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 196
Explanation and Analysis:

“The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is off. There was martyrs in old times…that suffered death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of 'em ever was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been.”

Related Characters: Bill Driscoll (speaker), Sam , Johnny
Page Number: 198
Explanation and Analysis:

Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down plump on the ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately…

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 198
Explanation and Analysis:

I think you are a little high in your demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition, which I am inclined to believe you will accept. You bring Johnny home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree to take him off your hands.

Related Characters: Ebenezer Dorset (speaker), Sam , Johnny , Bill Driscoll
Page Number: 199
Explanation and Analysis:

We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that his father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins for him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll , Ebenezer Dorset
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis:

When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he started up a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as a leech to Bill's leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a porous plaster.

Related Characters: Sam (speaker), Johnny , Bill Driscoll , Ebenezer Dorset
Related Literary Devices:
Page Number: 200
Explanation and Analysis: