The Ransom of Red Chief Summary & Analysis

From the very beginning, the story invokes delusion and irony, as the setting is a flat town whose name is “Summit” (evoking mountain peaks). The crooks at the story’s center condescend to the townspeople, assuming that they are backwards and incapable of thwarting the kidnapping scheme—reasoning that proves just as delusional as the town’s name. Furthermore, Sam’s use of the word “philoprogenitiveness” (meaning the love of one’s children) shows his silliness and pretentiousness. Sam wants to appear serious and intelligent, but he just comes across as ridiculous.

The logic of the kidnapping at first seems rational. For maximum impact, it seems effective to take the only child of a rich and important local citizen. However, the plan immediately goes awry when Johnny is not the well-mannered upper-class child they anticipated. The first aspect of their plan (bribing him with candy) immediately earns them physical violence, which is what they deserve for their abhorrent actions, but it is also a surprising act of violence from someone who was meant to be their victim. This shows that their plan cannot account for the complexity of reality, and that the locals are unpredictable.

When Johnny hits Bill with the brick, Bill isn’t violent to Johnny in turn—instead, he grouses about how the trouble will cost his father extra money (a threat he doesn’t even follow up on). This begins to suggest Bill’s patience, even under duress. Furthermore, the description of Johnny struggling like a “welter-weight cinnamon bear” cues readers to see the kidnapping as comical and bungled, rather than sinister and frightening. Neither the kidnappers nor the kidnapped seems particularly frightened or cruel.

Instead of being afraid, upset, or even sullen, kidnapped Johnny seems to be having a wonderful time. This is another example of the townspeople not behaving as Bill and Sam anticipated. Furthermore, Bill’s patience is on display again here. Johnny clearly injured him, but Bill’s generous explanation is that they are role playing. Not only does this show that incorporating Bill into his fantasy life has given Johnny real power over this man, but it also literally reverses the terms of the kidnapping, foreshadowing further reversals to come. 

These purportedly dangerous criminals and kidnappers have taken on the role of camp counselors or even surrogate parents, which shows the extent to which this kidnapping is off the rails. Furthermore, Johnny’s soliloquy is funny and touching, softening Johnny’s previous violence. Clearly, Johnny is simply a young boy who is naïve but curious about the world and is starved for somebody to listen to him. This passage, particularly the moment in which Johnny begs not to go home, hints that his home life is so troubled that he would rather be kidnapped and living in a rustic cave than at home with his rich but cruel father, which intensifies the reader’s sympathy for Johnny’s plight and contextualizes his prior violent behavior. 

Bill and Sam making Johnny sleep between them is an ambiguous gesture: while it seems restrictive at first, they claim that they are not afraid he would escape, so this seems to have an aspect of protective tenderness, as well. In any case, Johnny's refusal to be tamed continues with fantasy play late into the night, leading Sam to have a bad dream about a red-headed pirate, which is clearly a stand-in for the red-headed Johnny who has already gained tremendous power over his captors in real life. When Bill awakens to being scalped in the morning, Sam describes Bill’s screams as unmanly, thus reserving his harshest criticism for his friend, rather than his young attacker.

As Johnny’s primary playmate, Bill has taken the brunt of his abuse while Sam has been the executive of their ransom enterprise. Now, with dawn of the first day following the kidnapping, Sam is also a bit nervous about what Johnny might do to him in his sleep, and Bill jumps at the chance to call Sam out when he shows he is not immune to Johnny’s terrors. In this way, the two continue to bicker, rather than focusing on the job at hand, which makes it difficult to address the unexpected question of who in their right mind would pay for the return of such a terrible child? Sam asserts (without any personal knowledge of course) that parents dote on rowdy kids. He has not yet grasped the depth of their problems, as he goes off to try to familiarize himself with the unfamiliar area.

Sam's expectation that he would see peasants with pitchforks looking for Johnny contrasts with the reality: nobody seems to care. This is an indication that Sam does not understand the locals as well as he believes he does, casting doubt on the efficacy of their plan. Back in the cave, Bill asks if Sam has a gun. No further mention of a weapon occurs in the story and the fact that weapons have been absent from the story is important: bumbling ineffectiveness is key to maintaining the reader’s sympathy for these crooks since being unarmed signals that they aren’t a threat and gives evidence for how poorly prepared for mayhem these criminals truly are.

The idea that Johnny is Bill and Sam’s captive continues to erode as they realize they are the ones who need an exit plan, not Johnny. It's telling that Sam is uttering a sentence about the ransom letter, the key to their plans, just when Johnny knocks Bill over the fire with a slingshot in the style of little David overcoming the giant Goliath. The implication is clear that the tables have turned, and their plans continue to be eclipsed by Johnny's agenda.

Since King Herod was responsible for the murder of many young boys in Bethlehem, Bill’s tongue-in-cheek comment underscores just how desperate he is to be rid of Johnny, as Bill implies that the idea of doing away with all young boys has come to seem rather appealing. However, Johnny promises to behave, and in doing so, he tries to endear himself to the criminals. Being part of their crew is clearly important to him, and he doesn't want to go home.

It becomes clear that Bill and Sam are in over their heads with the ransom scheme, as they have yet to agree upon—let alone issue—a demand. Sam calls the prospective ransom letter “peremptory” (demanding attention or obedience), which will turn out to be another case of wishful thinking, since the matter of payment is anything but settled. Meanwhile, Bill is not happy in his role as primary caretaker. The difficulties with Johnny that lead to the discounting of the ransom are evident in the two colorful words Bill uses to describe Johnny (“skyrocket” and a “wildcat”). Both are not so much insults as grudgingly respectful of Johnny’s energy and power, important factors here foreshadowing the ultimate reversal of fortunes.

Although Bill and Sam’s letter to Ebenezer conveys a reduced ransom demand, it still illuminates their lack of situational awareness. For instance, it claims that it is useless for “skillful detectives to attempt to find him,” yet Sam has already observed that no one is looking for him. His elaborate investigation of the roads, crossings, wheat fields, and large trees doesn’t make him a native of the area, just more deluded in thinking he is in control when dealing with Old Dorset. The threat “you’ll never see your boy again” rings hollowest: these men clearly would never hurt Johnny, and it's not even clear that Johnny is missed. The assertion that "these terms are final" is simply untrue, as well, and signing off as "desperate men" is ironic, since it's not their aggression but their weakness that is making them desperate. This is amply illustrated when Johnny, tired of playing Indian, calls for a game of Black Scout, a move that will prove particularly ominous and painful for Bill.

Sam says the Black Scout game “sounds harmless” when clearly this is the most humiliating and potentially damaging game Bill has yet suffered. If Sam seems to be the more deluded of the two, Bill is the primary care-giver to Johnny, and the most abused. Yet Bill’s patience is again in evidence: after being kicked repeatedly as a play horse, he merely threatens to “warm you good” and continues the game. This is the kind of moment that builds sympathy for Bill, but there might be a limit reached for the reader: at what point does a person, particularly a grown man dealing with a child, just seem idiotic rather than sympathetic for putting up with abuse?

In the first indication that things are actually going as planned for a change, Sam discovers that the local people have at least noticed and are concerned about Johnny’s absence, so some increased confidence in the plan is warranted. Sam's pride is contrasted by Bill’s situation as Johnny's "horse," however, which he finds untenable and humiliating. Sam’s inability to anticipate the seriousness of Bill's growing objections to their criminal endeavor could now be a big issue for their plan.

Abused by Johnny, ridden like a horse, bitten, kicked black-and-blue, and forced to eat sand as if it were oats, Bill finally has snapped and, he believes, sent Johnny home because he can no longer tolerate “supernatural tortures.” Pathetically, he describes in detail his reasons for sending this young boy home—something that did not, in fact, happen. So far, Bill has been more aware of the acute reality of their challenges with Johnny than Sam has been, but here he takes a turn towards fantasy, believing that Johnny is gone when the boy is, in fact, right behind him.

When Sam tells Bill to turn around to see Johnny is still there with them, it causes Bill to flop down on the ground and pluck at grass and sticks. This slapstick moment has significance in that usually Sam is deluded while Bill sees their situation all too clearly, but here Sam is literally telling Bill to open his eyes and look at what’s in front of him. The result of pulling the wool from his eyes is shock, apparently, and a full hour of withdrawal from the world. When he comes around, Sam is once again the deluded one, insisting that the scheme will go forward.

Sam believes things are going well because he has sent a threatening letter and is receiving a reply. However, despite his assertion that his behavior resembles that of professional kidnappers, Sam actually seems to be participating in fantasy play similar to Johnny’s—after all, he is climbing trees and playing hide and seek with a “half-grown boy” who brings the response from Ebenezer. The "crabbed hand" with which the letter of response is written shows the age of the respondent, which might indicate that Ebenezer is weak—the substance of the letter will upend that implication.

In his letter of response, Ebenezer turns the tables and suggests that it’s Bill and Sam who should pay to end this debacle, not he. This reversal is a climax of the plot, establishing Ebenezer as the dominant actor, credibly threatening them in order to get what he wants. Amusingly, it is somewhat unclear if the neighbors would be angry with Sam and Bill for taking Johnny or for bringing him back. In any case, his signature (“very respectfully”) is the sort of business-like formality that is a recognizable feature of otherwise cut-throat business communications.

Sam's reaction to Ebenezer's letter is shock, of course, since to this point he has deluded himself that the kidnapping has a chance of succeeding. Sam and Bill's inability to make good on their threats to hurt Johnny is key to their coming acquiescence to Ebenezer's powerful response. In complying with Johnny's father's demands, they see the only way out of an improbably difficult situation—namely, that they haven't the heart to hurt anyone, and they are terrified of both Johnny and his father. In fact, Johnny's father is such a strong figure in their minds that they use a lie about him buying Johnny a silver rifle and moccasins for a bear-hunting trip as bait to lure Johnny home. It's heartbreaking, highlighting as it does how sad and disappointing the child’s life has been with his father.

In the final action, Johnny clings to Bill, rather than to his father, and the father restrains his son while Bill and Sam make their getaway. It’s a denouement that is both strangely sad and funny, illustrating that Johnny's home is no home, and that the strangers who came to town without a clue are leaving it considerably more knowledgeable about who runs things.