The thing that can’t be changed by the time. -Essay on “ After Twenty Years” by O. Henry SJ. H Twenty years is such a long time to change almost everything around us. During twenty years, a newborn baby becomes an adult and a middle-aged person becomes an elderly person. A short story “ After Twenty Years” that is written by O. Henry deals with the time, as we can see in the title. Before I read this story, I had a question. Does everything really change after twenty years? After I finished to read it, I found the answer.
Before let you know my answer, I will mention the short story. In this process, you can get a clue that is related to my answer. Firstly, I want to explain the features of this story. The story begins with “ the policeman on the beat” at night. Starting with the action characterizes O. Henry’s short story. Also, his detailed description of background, such as “ the time was barely 10 o’clock at night, but chilly gusts of wind with a taste of rain in them had well nigh depeopled the streets” is shown throughout the story. There are lots of implications, too.
For instance, a policeman who is a mysterious character at an early stage of the story says ‘ Big Joe’ Brady’s restaurant was torn down five years ago. The restaurant that becomes a hardware store is Bob’s appointed place, so closedown of the restaurant implies something bad. Also, there is a homonym with an implication. In a Bob’s dialogue, “ It’s worth it if my old partner turns up”, the idiom “ turn up” means two different things. One means ‘ appear’ and the other means ‘ inform to the police’. This ambiguous homonym implicates something bad as well.
Moreover, a temporal and spatial background imply the ending. This story happens at night, in front of the hardware store that was the restaurant five years ago. Secondly, I will mention a plot of the story. The features of this story is devices that makes the plot more interesting. Bob and Jimmy were friends who grew up together in New York. When they were nearly 20 years old, Bob went to “ the west to make his fortune” and Jimmy stayed in New York. Before they parted, they made a promise that they would meet at ‘ Big Joe’ Brady’s restaurant after twenty years.
Twenty years has slipped along. Bob meets the policeman and tells his story that he is rich now and hopes “ Jimmy has done half as well” because Bob thinks Jimmy was “ a kind of plodder” and he may “ get in a groove in New York” now. After the policeman leave, other policeman in plain clothes arrests Bob. Actually, Bob is a criminal wanted by the Chicago and the first policeman was Jimmy who realized that Bob is the criminal. Jimmy noticed that when Bob stroke his match. Does everything really change after twenty years?
The answer that I found after reading this story is no. As you can see through the characters, human nature doesn’t change. Jimmy who was “ a kind of plodder” becomes the policeman and even arrests Bob who is his old friend. Yet it doesn’t mean that the friendship between Bob and Jimmy is destroyed. Bob who already knew he was wanted in Chicago didn’t run away from the policeman to stay in the appointed place. Jimmy couldn’t directly arrest Bob by his hand. After all, the human mind is stronger than the time. Who am I after many years? It is a matter for consideration.
