Literary Analysis of 'The Gift of the Magi'

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.

Jim and Della perform an act of selfless love by their willingness to give something that held great value to them in order to get special presents for each other on Christmas. They do all of this out of love for the other. However, you will see that these gives prove to end up having no use in the end but that is not the main point. The main point is that although this ironic situation occurs, they both find joy in the thought that they would do this for each other. This love that they have for each other is far greater value than any gift that could be given. Jim doesn’t overreact or get angry with this conclusion.

In The Gift of the Magi, by O. Henry (1906), Della is one of two main characters, the other being her beloved husband, Jim. On Christmas Eve, Della has saved very little for a present for Jim when she decides to sell her most prized possession, her long beautiful hair, for more money. After doing this, and buying the perfect gift,

short story “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry. In this selection the author states, “So

For example in both stories, the characters give up something in order to get something for the other character. They both also want to make the other one happy on Christmas and this leads them to preforming a very generous and kind task of giving something they are really attacked to up. This is proved by two quotes, the first one from the original Gift of the Magi, "... there was two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim's gold watch....

This scene demonstrates situational irony when Della receives beautiful expensive combs for her hair which is now too short to be adorned with the combs. In the quote "They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession." she tells us they were really expensive. Since I know that Jim doesn't earn that much money, I can deduce that Jim sold something of his to pay for the combs. Jim had a strange look on his face because he just spent a lot of money to buy combs for his beautiful wife and her long hair, only to find out she cut it for him. So it must have taken a minute for Jim to register this

Della was very desperate to get jim a gift she went and asked “Will you buy my hair?" She cut and sold her very luscious and valuable hair to get jim a setup for his watch Jim had also sold his watch to get della combs for her hair. Jim had finally said "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while...I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on." they both had thoughts to get them nice presents but they both gave up things that the other got a present for that item, by doing this they hurt each other.

In The Gift of the Magi Della and Jim truly loved each other and sold their prized possessions to buy something nice for each other's trophy and in the ironic twist they had no use for each other's gift but in The Necklace Mme. Loisel was ungrateful and borrowed a necklace from her friend to go to a ball and losses the necklace that

In The Gift of the Magi, Della and her husband both scramble to find money to buy each other a gift. In The Necklace, Monsieur and Mathilde Loisel need money to replace lost jewelry that they borrowed. In each story, it is the absence of money that limits their options. Della had to cut off her hair. Jim sold

Whereas the exposition of The Gift of the Magi, Della is portrayed as someone who is a wonderful, poor and adores her husband. The inciting incident occurs when Della is counting money and realizing that she doesn’t have enough money to get a present for her Jim. She counts $1.87 exact. The rising action happens when, Della decides to sell her hair to the wig shop so she can afford the perfect gift for Jim. Della earns $20 by selling her hair the only thing she had pride in that she owned. At last she was finally able to purchase a platinum chain for Jim’s watch. During the climax, Jim looks at Della weirdly, pulls out the package and tosses it on the table. Della opens the package to find out that they were combs for her hair that she just

TS- I believe that Jim and Della are wise. They are poor but through everything they sold their family passing possessions that were handed down from generation to generation for a gift of one another on Christmas.

In addition to the irony of the situation, the author adds more by calling Jim and Della the Magi, the wisest of all gift-givers. The Magi, the wise men who gave to baby Jesus, could not give “the ability to reduce love to monetary figures.” (Bellman 2). Unlike Jim and Della’s gifts, the Magi’s gifts do not bear the title of irreplaceable, as they do not contain an ounce of the love and sacrifice the combs or chain posses. Though the combs and chains temporarily have no use, the delightful adoration they bring places them on the highest pedestal and proves the message of the tale.

Compare and Contrast Essay The Necklace and The Gift of the Magi have differences and similarities to each other in many ways. Each tells a story about giving and receiving and how a person’s attitude toward life helps them react when things don’t go their way. In the story, The Gift of the Magi, Jim and Della’s presents for each other show a respect and kindness that money cannot buy, which makes them the wisest.

THe movie is faithful in terms of keeping the main cast’s personality and the moral lessons it teaches to the readers. It retains the characters’ selfless personality from the book. In the book, Jim tells Della, “Let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ‘em for a while. They’re too nice just to use as presents.” This was stated after Jim and Della have exchanged their gifts with the cost of them losing something of their own (Della’s hair and Jim’s watch). The movie depicts the selfless acts Della and Jim did for each other and therefore, also teaches the same lesson as the book: to show our love for someone, we must give up something of our own. Despite retaining the same story and theme, the movie is told in a different manner.