The Cop and the Anthem

O. Henry uses repetition in various ways throughout “The Cop and the Anthem.” The opening sentences, for example, twice describe Soapy moving on his park seat, emphasizing his desire to be somewhere else.

O. Henry also uses repetition to describe Soapy’s response to hearing the anthem:

He would fight to change his life. He would pull himself up, out of the mud. He would make a man of himself again.

There was time. He was young enough. He would find his old purpose in life, and follow it. That sweet music had changed him. 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. He would— (40).

This use of anaphora (the repetition of the same words at the beginning of successive sentences) underscores Soapy’s newfound hope and seems to build toward a triumphant emotional climax. The hand of a cop on Soapy’s arm interrupts both the repetition and Soapy’s plans for the future in a way that emphasizes Social Class and the Cycle of Poverty and Crime. To everything that Soapy imagines “he would” do, society responds by saying he will not.