* {{Anvilicious}}: ''"The Guilty Party"'', which states that an upbringing in ghetto-type places, coupled with having parents who are [[AbusiveParents abusive]] or just plain neglectful, will lead you down a less-than savory path.
* SugarWiki/HeartwarmingMoments: At the end of "A Retrieved Reformation", a cop is able to positively identify a notorious safecracker who he has been chasing. However, observing that said safecracker was willing to sacrifice his freedom by using his abilities to rescue a little girl, he pretends not to recognize him.
** Also the final line of "The Last Leaf", when Sue pieces together why old Mike Behrman had caught pneumonia.
--->'''Sue''': Look out the window, dear, at the last leaf on the wall. Didn’t you wonder why it never moved when the wind was blowing? Oh, my dear, [[spoiler: it is Behrman’s great masterpiece — [[WhamLine he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell]].]]
* TearJerker: Most of his stories are humorous, but some, most prominently ''The Last Leaf'' and ''The Furnished Room'', are quite tragic.
* ValuesDissonance:
** ''A Harlem Tragedy'' is about a woman being proud of her abuse at her husband's hands, because it shows that he's interested in her, and that he's overpoweringly strong and masculine, and he always apologizes later and buys her things as an apology. Her friend, whose husband is much more meek and compliant, feels terribly jealous. It's clearly intended as satire, but ''still''.
** His racial attitudes can be sometimes particularly jarring, because they're usually not immediately relevant to the story, so they're not expected when they appear. For instance, an out-of-work match salesman in one of his minor stories talks about how gasoline is so much better for setting black people on fire (and the word he uses is not "black"). Still, his attitude towards black characters was actually quite FairForItsDay (although with lots of [[WhiteMansBurden patronizing attitudes]] and UncleTomFoolery - which can be genuinely jarring for today's readers.) In the above mentioned short story, the protagonist is a SnakeOilSalesman/petty LovableRogue who seems to be almost an IneffectualSympatheticVillain, when compared to the DeepSouth ''regular folks'' [[FridgeHorror who were buying his 'patent instantaneous fire kindler']] before they 'stroke oil', which got him out of his business.