Comparing Theme Of The Magi And The Song 'Endly'

“The Necklace” and “The Gift of the Magi” are both stories with ironic endings. In “The Necklace,” Mathilde is a lady dealing with poverty. She loses a necklace that a friend let her borrow, but she ends up losing it. She has to come up with a way to afford the necklace back. In “The Gift of the Magi,” Della is also dealing with poverty and is upset about not having the money to afford her husband a christmas gift. Mathilde and Della face their challenges with poverty by no communication, fashion, and value.

In “The Gift of the Magi,” the wife and the husband both gave up their prized possessions to get their significant other a gift. Since the couple were poor and wanted to satisfy each other with a wonderful gift, they had to give up what they never thought they would have before. I believe this shows charity in their relationship. They both wanted the best of the best for each other and kindheartedly gave up whatever they had. Della, the wife, asked someone to buy her long, silky, brown hair. “Will you buy my hair?” asked Della. “I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yer hat off and let’s have a sight at the looks of it.” As you can see, the wife sold her hair to buy her husband a gift which was a watch band for his watch. The husband then revealed to his wife that he sold his watch to buy her a comb.

Both Guy de Maupassant and O. Henry, the authors of “The Necklace” and “The Gift of the Magi”, are considered two of the best short story writers to have ever lived, and they both use irony to develop a complex theme in their stories. They both deal with young, poor couples who face certain trials, and are surprised by an unexpected, ironic event – although in different ways. In both of these stories, the authors create suspense and humor to create an enjoyable story. In both stories; there are several main themes including wealth, sacrifice, pride, and love; that can be seen in both “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Necklace.” One of the most noticeable pieces in both stories is the amount of wealth, or lack of wealth, that the couples have. The authors set the characters in an uncomfortable, drab environment. This can be seen in “The Gift of the Magi,” in lines 11-13 as, “a furnished flat at $8 per week (…) did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad” (Henry, 11-13), and in “The Necklace” in lines 13-15 as, “shabbiness of her apartment, the dinginess of the walls, the worn out appearance of the chairs, and the ugliness of the draperies” (Maupassant, 13-15). The Youngs are a low working class couple, while the Loisels are part of the middle class before the they lose the necklace. Altogether, it is clear that in

The author illustrates how humans feel pride in materialistic items by describing their reactions when they lose their item. In “The Necklace,” the precious item lost is a borrowed necklace. “She turned toward him despairingly,’I...I...I don’t have Mme. Forestier’s necklace”(Maupassant 204). The author illustrates that the character feels great pride in the item, and panics when the item is lost. “The Gift of the Magi” demonstrates that the two characters sacrifice their items that resemble their pride. “‘You needn’t look for it,’ said Della. ‘It’s sold, I tell you-sold and gone, too.’ (O. Henry 354)” The authors of these two short stories illustrate the same theme but in two different ways. Maupassant illustrates the theme through greed and social status. O. Henry uses sympathy towards the characters and love for one another to make a relationship with the reader and the

In the short story “The Gift of the Magi” Della and Jim is a young married couple who love each other very much. Della makes a sacrifice of cutting her long and beautiful hair so that she could have the money to buy her husband a chain for his watch. This is contrasting to “A Doll’s House” because in the story Nora instead of telling her husband what she wants for Christmas she asks Torvald for money so she can buy herself a gift. Jim does the same thing as Della did he sold his watch that was passed down from his grandfather and his father so that he could buy a comb set for Della for her beautiful hair. The personal sacrifices that each made was similar to a sacrifice that Nora made she borrowed money illegally so that her husband and dying father could be spared the stress of having to deal with the borrowing and lending of money. (Porter).

Gift of the Magi exercises many literary and DIDLS elements as Della tries to salvage her last pennies to buy a meaningful gift for her husband, Jim. One of the most vital parts of the story is situational irony. “Della,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas gifts away and keep them a while. They’re too nice to use now. I sold the watch to get the money to buy the combs. And now I think we should have our dinner (O. Henry 1). Sadness is expressed as they come to realize that they both bought gifts that were unable to use the gifts they received. Della had sold her hair to have enough money to buy a watch for Jim, and she got a comb. Jim sold his watch to buy the combs for Della, and she bought him a watch.This is considered situational irony because the situation is reversed. Another important element of Gift of the Magi is foreshadowing. “The James Dillingham Youngs were very proud of two things which they owned. One thing was Jim’s gold watch. It had once belonged to his father. And, long ago, it had belonged to his father’s father. The other thing was Della’s hair.” The two most important things to the James Dillingham Youngś were their hair and watches, which later they sell to make money to buy new gifts. They both bought each other gifts which they couldn't use, and it most likely took a toll on their self esteem. This is

The story was written by O’Henry in 1906. The story was centered around a seemingly poor couple who did not have enough money to buy each other the gifts that their significant other deserved. The story took place during Christmas. The Gift of the Magi is like a classic wisdom story in the bible. O’Henrys choice of title depicts symbolism between the three magi that brought gold, frankincense, and mur, to the baby Jesus and the gifts that Jim and Della had given to each other which mainly consisted of selfless love, Della’s hair and Jims pocket watch. This itself ties into the theme of his story. These gifts all entail the act

The story "The Gift Of The Magi" and the Sesame street video were different and similar in various ways. One difference is the presents. Della and Jim sold A watch and Dellas hair for money to buy gifts, on the other hand Bert and Ernie traded their most valuable things so they could get a gift for each other. Also one similarity is before there presents, They are both a poor family with no money and can barley get food but they still want to have a good Christmas so they need money. Another Difference is the ending, In the Sesame Street ending Bert and Ernie got their Ducky and paper clip collection back while on the other Della didn't grow her hair back and Jim didnt get his watch back. The last similarity is they

In "The Gift of Magi," Della and Jim sacrifice their prized possessions for each other and for love. Irony is represented in this story when Della and Jim both get each other gifts that mean a lot to each other. However, what they did not realize is that when Della cut her hair to to buy Jim a chain for his watch, she was unaware that Jim was going to sell his watch to buy her combs for her hair. The irony of their gift exchange is monumental as their unconditional love for one another took over for their own personal possession. Jim exclaims, “I don't think there's anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first." The magi which are described as wise men also signifies irony because Della and Jim's presents were more than wise. They represented that a gift does not need to be expensive to have value. A gift can be more meaningful just by the thought.

In The gift of the magi Irony is shown when Della sells her hair and buys her husband a watch chain, and Jeff sells his watch to buy Della combs for her hair. The theme of the gift of the magi is love and unselfishness. They both gave up their most prized possessions to make the other

In terms of personality they are total opposites of each other. Della from The Gift of the Magi is as selfless and adoring wife who treasures her husband and yet Mathilde from The Necklace does not care about anyone’s emotions and wishes except her own. Both of these women complain about their financial position, but Della complains about money only because she want to get a present for Jim. The narrator proves this by saying, “Only one dollar and eighty-seven cents to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim” (Henry 1906). Contrarily, Mathilde takes part in self-indulgence in light of the fact that she can't bear the cost of things for herself: the narrator states this, “She grieved incessantly, feeling that she had been born for all the little niceties and luxuries of living” (Maupassant 1884). After Della sells her hair she obtains twenty dollars to purchase Jim's Present, she is ecstatic and fulfilled because now she can buy a Christmas present for Jim. But, when Monsieur Loisel tells Mathilde that they are invited to a high class party, she demonstrates no gratitude; instead, she whines that she doesn't have anything to wear. Monsieur Loisel selflessly gives the money he had kept aside for his rifle to his wife to spend on the dress. Mathilde communicates no thankfulness; rather, she later cries that she has no jewelry to wear with the dress. It is clear in The Necklace that Mathilde places material

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

“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.

The comparison O. Henry makes between the story of Jim and Della and that of the Magi is rather relevant as the Magi were the ones who are credited with being the origins of the “giving nature” of the Christmas season. In this story, we see a man and a woman so blinded by love that they are willing to make ultimate sacrifices for the happiness of the other. Similar to the Magi, Della and Tim put each other before themselves and through their generosity and considerable lengths they both went to achieve that generosity is something more admirable than any materialistic gift they could ever offer each other, thus making the uselessness of their gifts irrelevant.

Authors use literary elements to enhance their writing through details to describe a scene in the author’s writing, or use language to elevate the story. “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry and “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant, both use many literary elements to give their writing more depth. “The Gift of the Magi” uses irony throughout the story when Della and her husband, Jim, both do not have enough money to buy each other gifts for Christmas. “The Necklace” uses a lot of detail to show what Madame (Mme.) Loisel dreams of at the beginning of the short story. “The Necklace” is one of the many short stories that use literary elements to elevate the story and keep the reader engaged in the author’s writing.