“After Twenty Years” & “A Retrieved Reformation”

BY Izzah Kamran

The actions we do now may seem small but in the future, they could be very effective. In both fiction short stories, “A Retrieved Reformation” and “After Twenty Years”, O.Henry shows this universal fact. In “After Twenty Years”, two old friends meet but it doesn’t go as one of them planned because he gets arrested. In “A Retrieved Reformation”, an ex-thief uses his expert safe cracking skills to save a little girl’s life. From both stories, we can learn that the past will heavily affect what will happen in the future based on what you do with it, negatively or positively.

Both of the main characters’ pasts heavily affected what happened in their future. In “After Twenty Years”, two good friends who haven’t seen each other in two decades meet up again. But, Bob is a criminal on the run in the West and Wells is a cop in New York. Bob meeting up with his old friend did not go as he planned. Then, in “A Retrieved Reformation”, Jimmy is an ex-thief who is very skilled in breaking into safes. A year after moving to a small town, he changes his name, no one knows his past, he runs a successful show store, and is engaged to the bank owner’s daughter. After an incident where a little girl gets stuck in a safe that can’t be opened, Jimmy is able to save the girl’s life by cracking the safe open. Though both characters’ pasts made a huge difference in what happened later, something negative happened to Bob and something positive happened to Jimmy.

Bob’s life had a negative ending when he had tried to meet up with his old friend. During the twenty years they were apart, Bob became a criminal and was constantly on the run from the cops. When talking about his life in the West, he says, “I moved around everywhere, and I moved quickly.” This shows he was always on the run from the cops. Later, Bob “took out a fine watch, covered with small jewels.” This expensive watch Bob also stole while in the West. Some people might interpret this to mean that he was a successful and honest man. But it clearly means that he stole it because if he was successful, he wouldn’t need to move around everywhere like he mentioned. Even though Bob was always on the run from the cops and was never caught, he decided to see his old friend, a piece of his past. Wells found out that Bob was a wanted man so instead of meeting Bob himself, he sent a cop to arrest him. Bob was excited to see his friend but this excitement and his past is what got him arrested. While some might argue that it wasn’t his past that got him arrested, but his criminal record, they forget that seeing his old friend in New York is what led him straight to the cops.

Jimmy’s past actually ended up saving a life. Jimmy and his fiancée, Annabel, had gone to see Annabel’s father’s new safe along with Annabel’s family. Then, Annabel’s niece, Agatha, accidentally got locked in the safe. Everyone started to panic and Agatha’s mother started to scream, “She will die of fright! Open the door! Oh, break it open!” While some might argue that Agatha couldn’t have died in a short amount of time, they forget the fact that she could hyperventilate and die of fright. Jimmy, saving Agatha, took out his tools he used when he used to steal and went to work opening the safe. His past of breaking into safes came to good use when he was able to save Agatha from the locked safe.

In both short stories, “A Retrieved Reformation” and ” After Twenty Years”, we could clearly see how Bob and Jimmy’s past affected their futures dramatically. Bob ended up getting arrested after just wanting to meet his old friend. Jimmy ends up saving a life with knowledge from his past that he wanted to forget about. In the end, we can all learn that the actions we do now may seem small, but may become serious in the future.