A “Retrieved Reformation” and “After Twenty Years”

By: Hamza Dehaini

Everyone can have a certain mood, but it can change on what you do. The story, “A Retrieved Reformation”, a dystopian story by O’ Henry is about a man named Jimmy Valentine who is a Burglar just got out of jail and started to rob right after but instead found the woman he loved and even risked everything for her, even his freedom. Though the story “After Twenty Years” is also a dystopian story by O’ Henry and is about a man who was to meet his friend at a restaurant in twenty years but instead got arrested because he was apparently wanted. In both of these stories, it shows that the characters in the stories have different personalities when their actions change.

In “A Retrieved Reformation” Jimmy Valentine at first enjoys and cares about money as proved in the story, “After the a week from the release of Valentine, there was a neat set of safe burglary.” This shows that at the moment, he is risking everything just for money. In “After Twenty Years”, Bob was at the moment patient as proved in the story, “‘It’s alright, officer’ he said. ‘I’m waiting for a friend.'” This sentence is when the officer saw Bob when he was waiting tor his friend.

Later in “A Retrieved Reformation”, Jimmy was about to go rob a safe until he saw Annabel Adams who he loved immediately, so he didn’t care about money any more, though he didn’t  care about money, though he cared about Annabel so instead he changed his name, opened a shoe store and started a normal life as proved in the story, “His shoe store was flourishing, and he and Annabel were to get engaged in two weeks”, Bob was now changed into being very exited and happy to see his old friend so he told him everything about his life and what happened in the past twenty years to him. This is proved in the story, “The man from the West was beginning to tell the story of his life.”

Finally, in the end of “A Retrieved Reformation”, Jimmy risks everything including his fiance, their trust in him, and maybe even his freedom,to save young Agatha from dying in a safe. This proves that Jimmy now completely  cares about Annabel and her family to risk everything for them. This is proved in the story, “This act of Ralph D. Spencer passed away, Jimmy Valentine took his place.” In “After Twenty Years”, Bob changed his personality because he was being arrested and the man that he thought was his friend wasn’t even him as proved in the story, “Your not Jimmy Wells.”

All these points prove that in both of these stories, it shows that the characters in the stories have different personalities when their actions change. These points are all proved in the story, “A Retrieved Reformation”, is a dystopian story by O’ Henry is about a man named Jimmy Valentine who is a Burglar just got out of jail and started to rob right after but instead found the woman he loved and even risked everything for her, even his freedom and the story “After Twenty Years” which is also a dystopian story by O’ Henry and is about a man who was to meet his friend at a restaurant in twenty years but instead got arrested because he was apparently wanted. With all these points proved in both stories, they all also prove that everyone can have a certain mood, but it can really change on what you do in your everyday life.