Analysis of the story "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry

     The Gift of the Magi” by O.Henry is a short story about James and Della Dillingham Young, and the events that occur one Christmas eve.   The story begins with Della Dillingham Young frantically gathering her money to purchase a gift for her husband Jim Dillingham. Della loves her husband Jim so much, that she sacrifices her beloved hair in order to purchase a wrist band for Jims watch. Unbeknownst to her, Jim sacrificed his watch to purchase a set of combs that she always desired.

      Love, sacrifice and wealth are three main themes that can be found in this short story. The love that Della and Jim share is unconditional. They are willing to sacrifice their most prized possessions to please one another. Although they are poor their love for one another makes them rich.

      The setting takes place on Christmas Eve in a very modest apartment. The couple’s humble living environment helps the reader clearly visualize their poverty. The fact that Della and Jim are poor forces them to sacrifice, while simultaneously making the sacrifices more meaningful. O.Henry uses imagery to depict the couple’s cheap, shabby living arrangements. The author creates a strong contrast between their poverty and their rich love for one another. This quote assists in illuminating this contrast:   “She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard.”

      “The Gift of the Magi” is a fable. The author uses a simple situation to help make a complex moral point. The moral of this story is unconditional love is greater than physical riches. The tone of “The Gift of the Magi” is reminiscent. The narrator is not a character in the story, and appears to speak directly to the audience. The narrator seems to be very wise, and well informed about the world.

     The main characters are Della and Jim. It is a young married couple. Della is a housewife. But, she saved one or two pennies by “bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied”. She tried to earn some money in order to buy a gift for a her husband. It is a metaphor, and we can see, that Della is hard-working and thrifty.

      As for her appearance, Della is really beautiful. She always wanted to look nice for Jim. Her hair is “like a cascade of brown waters”, which is shown with the help of similie, is her pride. "Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out of the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts."-it is said that her hair is her one of her two possessions, the first is Jim. "the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes" shows us that she is quite happy. Also she is pious: “she had a habit of saying little silent prayers about the simplest everyday things".

     Jim, or Mr James Dillingham, is a young man at his twenty-two. He is a man of a house, a breadwinner. Jim was never late, he was punctual. He was rather serious. It is described with the help of simile: “as immovable as a setter”. He really loved Della, because he even sold his gold watch that had been his father's and his grandfather's, in order to buy a present for Della.

     Their love ie strong and true, and they are the magi in their relationships.

Speaking about the stylistic devices, O. Henry used simile, comparison, metaphor, repetition, antithesis, personification, irony, hyperbola.

     Simile is used to show the description of Della's hair: "Della's beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters."

     “That made her looks like a truant schoolboy.” - comparison, to show that after cutting hair Della is compared with the truant schoolboy. Her hair was covered with tiny, close-lying curls.

     The comparison of Jim and Della's possessions to those of Biblical figures helps bring out how precious those two items are to their owners; to Jim and Della they're treasures, which they give away. By bringing them up, and by mentioning the magi, O. Henry creates a sharp contrast between their spectacular riches and the obvious poverty and Jim and Della. Here author used a metaphor to show us that their love is true and strong. "They are the magi" - a metaphor, that shows us that Jim and Della's love and attitude to each other is more important that their possessions.

     A repetition is used at the very beginning of the story: "a grey cat walking a grey fence in a grey backyard". It shows us a sad atmosphere. Also in "On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat."a repetition of adjective "brown" shows poorness. I guess, that brown color is not a color of sadness, poorness.

      Antithesis is used to describe opposing feelings: “And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! A quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails”.

     "Her heart had simply craved and yearned over them" - the case of personification.

      Also there is dramatic and situational irony. We know smth that the character do not, and the ending is unexpected.

     And the case of hyperbole is used in " Had the Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out of the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy".

     The story's opening sentences confront us right away with the problem: Della only has $1.87 to buy a Christmas present, and it's Christmas Eve. After the first paragraph, the narrator gives us a bit more fleshing out of the situation. Della's in a meager flat, she and her husband Jim are poor, she loves her husband more than anything else in the whole world. Plus, she positively needs to buy him the perfect Christmas present. With $1.87. When Della lets down her hair, we also learn the other most important fact for the story: her hair and Jim's gold watch are the only prized possessions the couple has. Everything is now set up for the rest of the story to unfold.

     The conflict is supposedly the moment where the "problem" in the story appears, but this story began right from the first with a problem. In "Gift of the Magi" the point of conflict actually solves the first problem and replaces it with a second. By selling her hair, Della gets the money to buy Jim a great present, eliminating the first problem through decisive action. Shortly thereafter she finds the perfect present, so neither the money nor the present is the issue any longer. But now there's a new problem: will Jim be pleased by Della's action and appreciate her gift, or will he be angry with her for parting with the hair he loved so much?

     When Jim arrives, he doesn't seem to react well: he stares at Della and can't seem to process that her hair is gone. But it doesn't look like he's angry, so much as simply shocked. Della can't quite understand what kind of reaction he's having, nor can we. This creates suspense; we want to know what it is he's actually feeling. We also want to know how he'll react to Della's gift. When Jim snaps out of his shock, he tells Della (and us) that his reaction will make sense when Della opens the present he bought her…

     When Della opens Jim's present to find the combs, we understand why Jim was so shocked. It also becomes clear now that he's not angry with Della, and he assures her he'll love her no matter how she looks. Although the climax doesn't fully "predict" the ending, it is the first half of the twist. And if we do get to thinking about where Jim got the money to buy those combs, we might be able to guess what happens next.

     We're still waiting to know how Jim will react to Della's gift, and we might also be wondering just how he got the money to buy those expensive combs. Della gives Jim the watch chain, and…

     Presented with his gift, Jim calmly reveals (with a smile) that he sold his watch to buy Della her combs. So her present is useless too. Well, that does it for the Christmas presents. Not much left to do but eat those pork chops.

     In the  final paragraph the narrator tells us that it doesn't really matter that Jim and Della's presents turned out to be useless. They are the wisest givers of all – in fact, they're the magi. We leave feeling satisfied and happy.

     In this short story, O.Henry focuses mainly on three great themes - those of poverty, generosity, and most important of all - love. In this writing, whose title is an allusion to the gift of the three wise men to Jesus when he was born, the author clearly shows the value of personal affection and the true meaning of giving gifts. In short, the main idea is that the best gift is that which is most sincere and comes from the bottom of the heart instead of an extravagant, lavish possession that would bring nothing to the warmth of the human relationship. The author's idea is especially emphasized when both of the main characters discover that what they had received would not be of any use to them. In this way, the gifts that the two loving spouses give each other become symbols of the passionate love that they feel for each other and that will never be extinguished by their poverty. That is, what is material and indeed lacking in their world steps even farther back to let the reader understand that those two souls have given and received the wisest and most precious gift  -  that of human emotion and affection.
     I like this story very much, and most of all, due to course of stylistic I understand this story fully, and it helps me to see this story from a different angle.