Molly's+Summary

Molly Haugh 3/2/09 8th Reading

Summary of “A Retrieved Reformation” Do evil people change? Can a bad person become good again? If someone does something bad, can they still be considered good? Those were the questions “A Retrieved Reformation” was asking

Jimmy Valentine was a notorious thief. He had just served ten months of a four-year term in jail. Jimmy had only expected to serve three months at the most, due to the fact that he had good friends on the outside. He was very happy to be going outside the jail, but not so happy with the clothes the sheriff had given him.

Once Jimmy was outside the jail, he celebrated freedom with a plate of chicken. He donated to a blind, begging man on the street, got on a train for three hours, and met up with his friend, Mike Dolan, at Mike’s café. Jimmy then preceded to go up to his room atop the café. He opens his safe in which the burglary tools he made himself are kept. He had previously robbed three banks in which he got a total of seven thousand three hundred dollars in cash.

Ben Price was a man that was very good at identifying all of the things that Jimmy had done. So to speak, he was an expert on the subject of Jimmy Valentine. Ben knew that it was Jimmy that had robbed all of those banks.

Jimmy had to leave and go to a different town. He saw a very beautiful woman whom he found out was Annabelle Adams, the banker’s daughter. He assumed a different identity, Ralph Spencer, a shoe store owner. They fell madly in love and soon became engaged. Jimmy was quite smitten with her.

Later, when Jimmy was going to go and visit his hometown, he got to go into the banking room with his future father in-law. He described his new safe to Jimmy, while Jimmy listened only a little bit. Suddenly, his future niece got stuck inside. Luckily, Jimmy was able to save her with his burglary tools, but it was too late. They had already seen him for who he really was. A thief. He walked out without a backwards glance.

I think that this story was saying that evil people //can// change, but that doesn't mean that they //will// change.