Mammon and the Archer

Prior to this forum I have never actually heard of O Henry before, but since being here I have heard bits and pieces about him. I have heard that he does write horror stories and things of that nature so I have been curious to read his works.

I it was by chance that I came across one of his stories within one of my short story collections. I was surprised by how expertly written each story I have read so far was, as I did not really recognize any of the authors names included within the collection, until I came across O Henry. Now I am intrigued to look up the other authors included to see if they too are all known writers who are simply not known to me.

Mammon and The Archer was quite an amusing and charming tale about the power of money and love and perhaps which truly has more power and which really ends up victorious.

The story does leave some rather mixed feelings, though like all of the stories within this collection I think it is a story that is intended to make one think. The story depicts a man whom appears to care about little more than his money, and seems to be quite out of touch with anyone or anything else. His son comes to him with a problem he has regarding a girl whom he has feelings for but he never gets a chance to speak to, and now she is set to be leaving for Europe he will only have a few minutes time for her. While the father as he listens continues to brag about his wealth and they get into a discussion about money's inability to buy time and ends up leaving his father sulky with his problem unresolved.

When his aunt goes to the boy and gives him a small gold ring she says for luck in love.

He is to pick up the girl in a cab and take her the movies, when he drops the ring and has to stop and pick it up, by the time he returns back to the cab a traffic jam occurs and the boy and girl end up having 2 hours time alone together and in that become engaged.

On the one hand it is tempting to want to believe that it is a story of fate working in loves favor but in the end it is revealed that the traffic gridlock was contrived by the father in which he paid off everyone involved to hold up the traffic to give his son more time with the girl.

In the way it is almost heart warming to see that he truly does care about his son and was not as out of touch as he appeared, and in spite of his smugly proving his point about money's power, he humbly keeps the truth to himself, and when the aunt boasts the power of love over money to him, he says nothing to despoil he illusion that it was indeed the gift of her ring which caused the event to lead to the boys happiness.