A Review of The Love Powder and The Cop and the Anthem and The gift of the magi by O Henry, a Work by O. Henry

The use of trickery in writing and confusing yet enlightening the reader. With an unseen path is called irony; whom uses his scamming hands to change. The outcome of a story but managed carefully by the writer to do as he says, because every term has a temper of its own. Irony grants the hungry mind surprise and engages them to keep on reading to find out the outcome and impact on the characters of the story. It also shifts one’s thinking into considering other options before ruling out what has to come. Giving away the talent of sculpturing irony into words. O’Henry wrote many different stories each including the mischievous little twist, some among them are “The Gift of the Magi”. “The Love Powder” and “The Cop and the Anthem”. O’Henry very skillfully on this department. Indeed, had the artist way of waving such endings to surprise. The audience with smoothness and a hint of humor, no matter what the situation the character might be encountered in. With morals on life that teach the reader to look at the big picture instead of just keep on focusing on the small leaf that hangs off an ivy tree.

One introduces you to the first marvelous story where O’Henry describes. How exactly is the life of the dispossessed people and what they consider home, “The Cop and the Anthem”; As Soapy struggles to get himself out of misery of finding a decent meal and a peaceful street on where to sleep, he’s struck by a sudden idea, and that’s to be sent to jail so he can rest peacefully, the only problem is that none of his plans seem to get him anywhere near reaching the criminal standards. So he just decides to give it up and live his life as a right man, finding a job, having a house, education… and he lives happily ever after as a rich, successful person, not. Quite the opposite. A cop comes out of nowhere and has him arrested for loitering; he catches his wish, after awfully chasing it for too long. The satire here is that after so very many tries and finally offering himself to a good-way of living, he’s convicted for something he didn’t even acknowledge of doing. Oh, the irony!

The idea of being in a love triangle can be of very much pleasure for the one who’s loved and who loves back, though not really the case on the following story of “The Love Powder” in which main character, Micky; faces the fact that whom he adores is in fact going to run away and get married in secret with the man he thought as friend (It’s not like this detail is important because nevertheless Micky never emphasized or made it clear to his one in particular how much he loved her, he was rather shy.) Now you may be wondering how he knew all that. Well Chunk McGowan wasn’t too sure of himself either because every time he proposed to Rosy (that one in particular)the idea of running away, she changed her mind every two seconds; which leads us to our love powder, the one Micky cleverly created (crushing a sleep pill and adding some sugar) so to “help” Chunk solve his problem and after Chunk regarded him with a grateful face, Micky tended his business, calling Rosy’s father and pretty much spilling the beans, and what father with his straight mind would allow his daughter to run away and marry? Well the next few events on the story, you can manage to figure out by yourself; only life has not always played by the rules, if one haven’t stressed that out enough, and silly little irony here jumps up, ready for some action, making it so that Chunk ends up marrying Rosy, fair and square, deciding to use the love powder on someone who really needs that extra points to win the game, and gives it to Rosy’s father and the poor man instantly falls under the spell.