24 pages • 48 minutes read
O. HenryThe Cop and the Anthem
Fiction | Short Story | Adult | Published in 1904A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Social Class and the Cycle of Poverty and Crime
“The Cop and the Anthem” demonstrates the effects of social class on one’s life, suggesting that it often causes unfair judgment, mistreatment, and lack of opportunity. Soapy isn’t a violent, greedy, or cruel person. He doesn’t even aspire to join a higher social class, knowing full well he’s not welcomed among New York City’s elite. He merely wants basic human necessities—warmth and food—and sees returning to prison as the easiest (and perhaps only) way to obtain them: “Soapy’s hopes for the winter were not very high. He was not thinking of sailing away on a ship. He was not thinking of southern skies, or of the Bay of Naples. Three months in the prison on Blackwell’s Island was what he wanted” (36).
These tempered expectations themselves speak to Soapy’s experiences of poverty and incarceration: That the best he can imagine for himself is imprisonment does not speak well of society. Yet the people and institutions Soapy encounters do not respect even these modest goals. At the second restaurant Soapy visits, the waitstaff refuses to call the police for no apparent reason beyond the fact that Soapy requests it: “‘No cop for you,’ said the waiter” (38). At the first restaurant, Soapy’s impoverished appearance alone is enough to relegate him to subhuman status in the eyes of the staff: “But as Soapy put his foot inside the restaurant door, the head waiter saw his broken old shoes and the torn clothes that covered his legs” (37).
Such perceptions are difficult to shift. When a cop finds Soapy in the church, he questions him about why he is there and refuses to believe Soapy’s insistence that he means no harm. The interaction is deeply ironic, as Soapy enters the church not because he has any ill intentions but rather because he has resolved to turn his life around. Inspired by the music coming from inside, Soapy feels, for the first time in the story, that he might be able to dig his way out of poverty after all: “Tomorrow he would find work. A man had once offered him a job. He would find that man tomorrow. He would be somebody in the world” (40). Soapy’s resolution reflects quintessentially American ideals of hard work and self-reliance, but even his acceptance of these principles is not enough to save him. Whether Soapy could have overcome the material barriers to success is unclear but ultimately beside the point, as the policeman’s prejudice alone proves sufficient to keep Soapy trapped in the cycle of poverty and crime.
“Freedom” and the American Dream
With a former prisoner for a protagonist, “The Cop and the Anthem” challenges conventional ideas of freedom, especially in the context of American ideology. The story takes place in turn-of-the-century New York City: a center of business and a port of entry (often literally) for those chasing the “American dream.” This idea, deeply embedded in the American mythos, hinges on the idea that anyone can build a meaningful and independent life for themself through hard work. A regular paycheck means freedom. A steady job means freedom. A chance at advancing in society, working hard and being recognized for it, and giving one’s children a better life all tie into this American conception of freedom.
For Soapy, however, such freedom is so utterly inaccessible that the very word has acquired negative connotations: “He was filled with sadness. He was still free. Was he going to remain free forever?” (39). “Freedom” in his experience means simply “unincarcerated,” which is not a desirable state when one is also unhoused, alone, and invisible. His misery implies that the bitter cold and loneliness are a greater prison than prison itself: “He began to think of the Island as if it were as far away as heaven. He pulled his thin coat around him. The wind was very cold” (39).
Prison, conversely, represents a kind of freedom in Soapy’s mind; he reflects that in Blackwell’s, “a gentleman’s life was still his own life” (36). Although he couches this assessment in terms of independence, the kind of freedom Soapy prizes is not primarily the “positive” freedom of the American dream—the ability to act as a free agent. Rather, it is a “negative” form of freedom: Imprisonment frees Soapy from various anxieties and indignities. While incarcerated, he does not have to worry about procuring food, freezing to death, or encountering the condescension or prejudice of those who are more fortunate.
While the story does not deny that these are real concerns, it also suggests that they represent a limited view of freedom. Soapy himself recognizes this when he hears the anthem playing and realizes that his day-to-day struggle to survive is a dead end: “He saw his worthless days, his wrong desires, his dead hopes, the lost power of his mind” (40). However, the moment Soapy aspires to a more expansive kind of freedom, he finds himself back in jail, symbolically suggesting that the American dream is not merely inaccessible for people like Soapy but rather something they will be punished for even striving for. Freedom in any form thus seems illusory in “The Cop and the Anthem.”
Personal Dignity Is Essential to Survival
Soapy would rather endure another mark on his criminal record and suffer the inhumane conditions of an early 20th-century prison than continue to live “freely” as an unhoused person. Notably, he prefers prison even though he knows he could find a bed at a shelter: “There were places in the city where he could go and ask for food and a bed. These would be given to him. He could move from one building to another, and he would be taken care of through the winter” (36). For Soapy, however, the trade-off is not worth it. What he would gain in material comfort at the shelter, he would lose in self-respect: “They would make him wash his whole body. They would make him answer questions; they would want to know everything about his life” (36). Soapy’s thought process emphasizes the intrusiveness and infantilization of the shelter experience. Once there, neither his privacy nor his agency would be respected; rather, he would be expected to make both his life and body available for scrutiny. Soapy, whom O. Henry describes as “proud,” refuses to compromise himself in this way.
Instead, Soapy chooses to see himself as a “gentleman,” even describing himself as such to the waitstaff at the second restaurant. The word choice is ironic and serves partly to satirize “gentlemen” who are at least as morally suspect as Soapy. However, it also underscores that Soapy feels he has a recognizable place in society. His lot in life may be much humbler than a “gentleman’s,” but it is in some way analogous to it. Soapy likewise frames imprisonment not as imprisonment but rather as a choice: It is his version of traveling abroad to avoid the harsh winter. By viewing himself and his actions in these terms, Soapy maintains a sense of agency and independence, “find[ing] some way to take care of himself” and “mov[ing] toward his desire” (35, 36).
In all this, however, Soapy proves mistaken. His constant inability to secure his ends highlights his powerlessness, and the frequency with which people mistake his intentions and even class suggests that he is effectively invisible to them. Soapy is therefore not so much someone whom society looks down on as he is someone it does not notice at all, which is perhaps the worst indignity of all.
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