2. Journal:
• Have you ever
wished for
something that you
later came to regret?
Write about your
experience. What
was it that you
wished for? Why
did you later regret
your wish?
3. Summary:
The story is about a homeless man named
Soapy. Soapy faces the urgent necessity of
finding some sort of shelter for the winter. He
plans to put himself in prison in Rikers Island,
the New York City jail.
For this purpose, Soapy decides to do
something illegal in order to attract a cop’s
attention. What he does includes cheating a
restaurant into serving him an expensive meal,
vandalizing the plate-glass window of a luxury
shop, repeating his eatery exploit at a humble
diner, sexually harassing a young woman,
pretending to be publicly intoxicated, and
stealing another man's umbrella .
However, no matter what he does, his plan
falls into failure. Disappointed, Soapy hears the
church organ playing an anthem that makes him
decide to turn over a new leaf. Just at this
moment, a policeman taps him on the shoulder
and asks him what he is doing. Soapy answers
“Nothing,” and then he is arrested by the
policeman. He is convicted of the misdemeanor
of loitering and sentenced to three months in
blackwell,s island
6. Discussion:
• Consider the effect of a job training program
for criminals in jail on future crime prevention.
We evaluate the relative effectiveness of a job
training program on lowering the probability
of reentry and making duration till re-entry
longer. Some programs are shown to be more
effective than others, thus reorganization of
programs may lead to more effective future
crime prevention.
7. Satire:
DEF: A satire is a literary genre in which vices, follies,
abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule,
ideally with the intent of shaming individuals,
and society itself, into improvement.
• Although satire is usually meant to be funny, its
greater purpose is often constructive social criticism,
using wit as a weapon.
Q: What could O. Henry possibly be satirizing about
society in his short story “The Cop & the Anthem”?
8. Satire:
• Although, this story was written in a
humorous style. In fact, it satirizes the
society at that time. The police who
people think are ones to maintain justice
are not ones to maintain justice. Whatever
Soapy did, he wasn’t caught as he had
wished. But when he did nothing, he was
caught by the police. Maybe the author
complained about American situation. We
should take it as a reminder, we shouldn’t
have our society fall into that situation.
This is what we should pay more attention
to.
• Maybe he is trying to say that cops are
never around when we need them. Isn’t
that the truth!
9. Closing Journal:
• What does O. Henry
show us about
society with the
character of Soapy?
What would society
be like if the people
who wanted to go to
jail couldn’t? What
do you feel in
society today
creates people like
Soapy?