An implied paradox in the story “The Gift of the Magi” by William Porter is that the main characters, Della and Jim Young are both poor and rich. They are poor in material things,but they are rich in love. The author uses irony in the story to show this. The beginning of the story introduces Della and explains that the couple does not have much money; her husband, Jim’s wages have been cut and it is almost Christmas time. She sees a perfect gift for Jim, a chain for his watch which was a family heirloom passed down from his father. She does not have the money to buy it, so she sells her beautiful hair for twenty dollars and buys the chain. She is excited to give the beautiful gift. When Jim walks in the door after work, he freezes and says,
John runs out the door behind them yelling, “Herrick! Herrick, don’t chain her! Damn you, man, you will not chain her! Off with them! I’ll not have it!
He again used situational irony to support his theme. It the short the business man finishes his meal and reaches in to his jacket to get his wallet. He starts to get nerves so he frantically reaches into his pants pockets looking, just to figure out that he is out of money. This businessman looked very expensive. He was wearing a suit, and tie both freshly ironed and he was smoking a sigar which were expensive then and still are now.
Even the wealthy kids who went to my school and lived in houses and ate three meals a day could not afford such a precious thing” (Alifirenka, Ganda, Welch 59). Therefore, when Martin receives a gift from Caitlin, he believes it is the most wonderful thing he’s ever acquired, but Caitlin would see it as just an ordinary T-shirt. The amount of significance the T-shirt presents to Martin is higher than the importance it would have to Caitlin. Since Martin does not have the slightest sum of money, he will not be capable of delivering a gift to Caitlin, so it is especially challenging for him to relate to her financial status. This symbolizes how Martin’s lack of wealth influences his ability to affiliate well with others in society.
The potential of circumstances to define lives is heavily overshadowed by individual choices’ ability to reshape how someone lives. An excellent example of this is in Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun. In this play, the Younger family is poor and lives in an aging tenement apartment. However, they are left with an inheritance of $10,000 after the death of Big Walter, but this positive circumstance doesn’t guarantee an improvement to the well-being of the characters. The play later illustrates how deriving any improvement from the money completely depends on how they choose to use it.
In the poem “Nikki-Rosa,” Giovanni uses metaphors, a critical tone and a first person perspective to demonstrate that wealth doesn't necessarily equate to happiness. The author explores her impoverished childhood, all the while explaining that she never really was “poor” due to the unity of her family. Such an instance would be the metaphor, “Black love is Black wealth…” (Giovanni). Giovanni uses this metaphor to compare love to prosperity, thus saying that she finds great value in her family despite being poor.
In his short story, “The Semplica-Girl Diaries”, the author George Saunders crafts an all too human tale as he shows the journal entries of the narrator, a husband and father of three who faces financial insecurity, and displays the effect money, whether in lack or excess, has on our actions and thoughts. The social setting of the story is almost identical to our current society, however there is a distinct divergence in the Semplica Girls, which are girls from impoverished backgrounds that hang from a wire in their heads as an odd, inhumane, and yet expensive, lawn ornament. In the pursuit of the “good life” for both his family and himself, the father places great importance on wealth in order to secure happiness, joy, and status through
The reckless lifestyle portrayed in the novel overshadows the less fortunate, focusing heavily on extravagant parties, excessive spending, and disregard for the consequences of actions. The actions of the characters and the novel set up create a powerless and voiceless sense of purpose for the less fortunate. When drawing attention to the forgotten characters and people in today’s society, it sheds light on the inequalities and issues that occur in our society today. It makes us feel the importance of reflecting on the impact of our actions and how they can affect another person or
The Magi story and the Sesame street video are similar and different in a variety of different ways. Something the video and the story have in common is that all of the characters are poor, and cannot afford a Christmas present for one another. While comparing both the video and story, we can see that all of the characters care about each other so much, they are willing to trade their most prized possessions to put a smile on the other person's face. When contrasting the video and the story, you can see that the setting and characters from the video are from sesame street, while the couple in the Magi story are very much human and it is taken place in an older time. A distinction between the video and the story might be what their prized possessions
Since the story uses a certain object, the Jacket, as the meaning of several issues, it primarily focuses on the narrator's poverty-stricken family. First of all, an example of the poverty is demonstrated when the narrator complains that the jacket "was so ugly and big that I knew I'd have to wear it a long time"(paragraph 3). It is clear that his lack of money was a problem in which he
How do you feel you would deal with a common problem, such as poverty? Well in the stories “The Necklace” and “The Gift of the Magi” two women, named Mathilde and Della, deal with “poverty” in very different ways, but end up facing some of the same challenges. Madame Mathilde is a greedy housewife who wishes to be bathed in diamonds while Della just wishes for her husband to be happy and as grateful for her as she is for him. However both Della and Mathilde end up feeling foolish because of the end result of Mathilde working 10 years drowning in debt when they didn't need too and Della sold her prize possession to buy something for her husband's prize possession when did the same thing.
I think Delle made the biggest sacrifice because she cut her hair because and sold it so her family could have money for christmas. Hair is something that can or can’t grow back and it is something that introduces you to people and it is something that is apart of your personality. The thing i noticed in the gift of magi is that Jim looked at della a different way. But i also think Jim made a big sacrifice to because he sold his watch.
Obsessed with her “unluckiness,” she neglects her children who are constantly exposed to the cold, emptiness of their mother’s heart. She is unable to love anything but the money she cannot attain. Her oldest child, Paul, forced to deal with this bitter treatment the longest, becomes obsessed with money as well, but as an attempt to win the interest of his mother. “Absorbed, taking no heed of other people, he went about with a sort of stealth, seeking inwardly for luck” (Lawrence 483). He rides into a trance on his rocking horse until he is killed by this urgency to find a winner. He wants to be “lucky” so badly. He wants to be the best, something his mother and father believed they could never be. He needs the money so that his house will stop screaming and his mother will love him.
The twists and turns of the plot as it unfolds within O. Henry 's “The Gift of the Magi” are what simply captivate the reader in such a short amount of pages. The story of Jim and Della on a cold Christmas Eve at the turn of 20th century America is centered around what is remarkably relevant to what many readers have experienced in their own lives; the inevitable stresses, sacrifices, and joys of the holiday season.
“My purpose is to show that in every human heart there is an innate tendency towards a respectable life; that even those who have fallen to the lowest depths in the social scale would, if they could, get back to the higher life…”(Rollins 7-8 ). O`Henry came up with this philosophy when writing his many different, entertaining stories. “The Gift of the Magi” was initially published in 1906 in O`Henry`s second collection of stories. “The Gift of the Magi” is a perfect story to illustrate how people do anything for the ones they love. The main characters each sell their most valued possession in order to buy the other the perfect Christmas present. They each bought the other something to complement their prized possession. Ironically, they had both sold their prized possession to get the other a gift.However, they bought gifts that were now useless to one another. Themes have some aspect of life, general truth, or moral that is shown throughout the story by the author. The themes in this short story really stand out to the reader. The way in which the two main characters demonstrate their selflessness for each other helps to emphasize the three major themes: poverty, love, and sacrifice.
In conclusion, this paper has discussed the literary elements of the short story, “The Richer, The Poorer.” In addition, this paper has also discussed the literary values of this story by analyzing the plot, characters, theme, point of view, and style elements.