The short and exciting story " The Cop and The Anthem " by O. Henry is about a homeless man called Soapy who notices once in a cold night on his park bench that he has to try to do everything possible to get into prison for three months to survive the winter. We might look at the cop and the anthem as two different paths available to Soapy. The anthem represents the life he used to have and wants to have again. The anthem represents a path where Soapy can live a good life on his own terms. End of "The Cop and the Anthem" was irony: when Soapy realizes he wants a better experience, he's arrested and sentenced to precisely what he wished for in the beginning—a three-month stay in jail.