Describe the kidnapped boy? |

One might compare the kidnapped boy in O. Henry's "The Ransom of Red Chief" with the boys in Lord of the Flies by William Golding. The English boys marooned on the island find themselves liberated from adult control and turn into savages. Something similar happens to Red Chief. The experience of being kidnapped by criminals is exhilarating. They can't discipline him. They can't serve as role models. How could they? They are kidnappers. He likes them. He identifies with them. They are outside the law themselves. They are worse than wild Indians.

Red Chief is described as follows:

The kid was a boy of ten, with bas-relief freckles, and hair the colour of the cover of the magazine you buy at the news-stand when you want to catch a train. 

He is really just an ordinary American boy but given all the attributes that make boys sometimes seem like wild Indians. Boys will be boys. Red Chief is enough of a problem for his parents to handle, but once he is freed from their control he turns into a hellcat. Sam and Bill, of course, know nothing about supervising ten-year-old boys. Red Chief senses their inadequacy and takes advantage of it. He is a little bit like some boys who torment a substitute teacher if she looks the least bit apprehensive and vulnerable. 

Sam and Bill do not realize they are giving their young victim the opportunity of a lifetime. They have released the tiger from its cage. Instead of being subdued and frightened, this boy sees his experience as the ultimate adventure. His imagination runs wild. It is amusing that Sam and Bill have to play his games. They don't want to hurt him because, for one thing, that would make their already serious crime all the more serious. They know they can't return him to his father with bruises. They can't lecture him on his behavior because they themselves are kidnappers. If they had any morality they wouldn't have kidnapped him in the first place--and he knows it. They have lost the authority and the gravitas of being adults. They are all outlaws together.