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    The Gift of Magi by O. Henry

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    matthew mirafuentes
    O. Henry was an American writer born William Sidney Porter who later adopted the pen name O. Henry. He is known for his short stories that romanticized everyday life in New York City and often featured surprise endings. His tales expressed how coincidence can impact characters through humor and irony.

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    The Gift of Magi by O. Henry

    Uploaded by

    matthew mirafuentes
    44 views1 page
    O. Henry was an American writer born William Sidney Porter who later adopted the pen name O. Henry. He is known for his short stories that romanticized everyday life in New York City and often featured surprise endings. His tales expressed how coincidence can impact characters through humor and irony.

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    O. Henry was an American writer born William Sidney Porter who later adopted the pen name O. Henry. He is known for his short stories that romanticized everyday life in New York City and often featured surprise endings. His tales expressed how coincidence can impact characters through humor and irony.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    44 views1 page

    The Gift of Magi by O. Henry

    Uploaded by

    matthew mirafuentes
    O. Henry was an American writer born William Sidney Porter who later adopted the pen name O. Henry. He is known for his short stories that romanticized everyday life in New York City and often featured surprise endings. His tales expressed how coincidence can impact characters through humor and irony.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    American writer O. Henry was born William Sidney Porter.

    He
    later changed the spelling of his middle name to “Sydney” and
    subsequently adopted “O. Henry” as his pen name. His tales
    romanticized the commonplace—in particular the life of ordinary
    people in New York City. His stories expressed the effect of
    coincidence on character through humour, grim or ironic, and
    often had surprise endings, a device that became identified with
    his name and cost him critical favour when its vogue had passed.

    The Gift of Magi (A summary)


    The story tells of a young married couple, James, known as Jim, and Della
    Dillingham. The couple has very little money and lives in a modest apartment. Between
    them, they have only two possessions that they consider their treasures: Jim's gold
    pocket watch that belonged to his father and his grandfather, and Della's lustrous, long
    hair that falls almost to her knees.
    It's Christmas Eve, and Della finds herself running out of time to buy Jim a
    Christmas present. After paying all of the bills, all Della has left is $1.87 to put toward
    Jim's Christmas present. Desperate to find him the perfect gift, out she goes into the
    cold December day, looking in shop windows for something she can afford.
    She wants to buy Jim a chain for his pocket watch, but they're all out of her price
    range. Rushing home, Della pulls down her beautiful hair and stands in front of the
    mirror, admiring it and thinking. After a sudden inspiration, she rushes out again and has
    her hair cut to sell. Della receives $20.00 for selling her hair, just enough to buy the
    platinum chain she saw in a shop window for $21.00.
    When Jim comes home from work, he stares at Della, trying to figure out what's
    different about her. She admits that she sold her hair to buy his present. Before she can
    give it to him, however, Jim casually pulls a package out of his overcoat pocket and
    hands it to her. Inside, Della finds a pair of costly decorative hair combs that she'd long
    admired, but are now completely useless since she's cut off her hair. Hiding her tears,
    she jumps up and holds out her gift for Jim: the watch chain. Jim shrugs, flops down
    onto the old sofa, puts his hands behind his head and tells Della flatly that he sold his
    watch to buy her combs.
    The story ends with a comparison of Jim and Della's gifts to the gifts that the
    Magi, or three wise men, gave to Baby Jesus in the manger in the biblical story of
    Christmas. The narrator concludes that Jim and Della are far wiser than the Magi
    because their gifts are gifts of love, and those who give out of love and self-sacrifice are
    truly wise because they know the value of self-giving love.

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