Narratological Analysis of O. Henry’s 'The Ransom of Red Chief'

Though it is possible to trace the origins of narrative theory back to Aristoteles and Plato, the current bases of it under the name of narratology as a discipline on its own right were laid in 1960s with the studies performed in the frame of French Structuralism. Today, narratology has been the focus of interest of many branches, and by virtue of the expansion in its size and importance, a great deal of contribution has been made to its content not only written discourses but also to the fields of film, history and even medicine. In the light of the developmental process of narratology, it is possible to suggest that systematized and consistent ways of depicting the constructive elements of a narrative have been prevalent. Accordingly, this study aims to pave the way for a better understanding of one of O. Henry’s famous stories, “The Ransom of Red Chief” by utilizing narratological tools of analysis. Considering the current situation of narratology as a method of analysis to involve a great number of theories and approaches towards a high number of aspects in a narrative, the need to limit the analysis in terms of both theories of narratology to be followed and the parameters to be focused in the story has emerged. Keeping this in mind, the analysis will be in the frontiers of main constructive elements of the story such as character, time, space, and point of view in the light of theoretical terminology coined mainly by classical (structuralist) narratologists such as Gerard Genette, Seymour Chatman, Mieke Bal, and Wolf Schmid.