Amusement in “The Ransom of Red Chief”.

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Amusement in “The Ransom of Red Chief” According to Dictionary.com, humor is a comic and absurd quality that causes amusement. In the short historical fiction story, “The Ransom of Red Chief,” O. Henry adds humor through the use of literary devices. Allusion, wordplay, and irony are some of the literary devices that O. Henry uses to create levity in his story. Allusion, in particular, is effective in creating humor because it uses prior knowledge to make a scene, expression, city, or town funny. For instance, O. Henry shows how Red Chief tries to scalp Bill, just as he had warned earlier. O. Henry writes, “Just at daybreak, [Bill] was awakened by a series of awful screams from Bill. They [were not] yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps, such as [you would] expect from a manly set of vocal organs- they were simply indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams such as women emit when they see ghosts or caterpillars” (Henry 51). Another example is when Johnny tries to ride Bill like a horse...

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