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Unit 1 Notes

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Unit 1 Notes

Thanksss

Uploaded by

tulasikommuri13
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© © All Rights Reserved
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UNIT - 1

The Gift of the Magi - Essay


"The Gift of the Magi" is one of the best stories of O' Henry. It tells a story about Jim
and Della who are a very poor family. The story ends with a moral lesson about the true spirit
of gifts giving on Christmas eve. Selflessness had a desire to see the loved ones who receive
the gifts happily are the inherent themes of the story. What makes the story more beautiful is
both the lovers made sacrifices to satisfy eachother.
"The Gift of the Magi" begins at the small flat of James (Jim) and Della Dillingham
Young on the day before Christmas. Della was worried because it was Christmas Eve the next
day and she had not the adequate money to buy a gift for her beloved husband, Jim. Della has
just finished paying the bills and finds that all she has left to spend on a present for Jim is $1.87.
At first, she complains her situation as the narrator takes note on the broken mail waterfall and
doorbell, and the small pier glass mirror.
Della struggles to find a solution to her predicament. She wants to get Jim a present
that he will treasure and rightly deserves for all of his hard work, but she only has $1.87 to
spend. Then she gets an idea about the most valuable thing she has is her hair. Her hair is long
and beautiful and she compares it to the beauty of the Queen of Sheba. She hurries off to a
hairdresser named, Madame Sofronie. Sofronie cuts off Della's hair and gives her $20 for it.
Della then begins to search for the perfect present for Jim. After being disappointed by
the gifts, she finds that they just are not good enough. Then, she recollects Jim's most treasured
possession: his grandfather's gold watch. She also remembers that Jim had to tie a leather strap
to the watch after the original chain broke, and that was exactly the type of gift she wanted to
buy for him. She goes from shop to shop looking for just the right watch chain until she at last
finds a handsome, platinum chain that is perfect worth $21. Della buys it, and returns home
with $0.87 leftover.
Upon reaching their flat, Della begins to worry that Jim might not find her attractive
without her hair, and so she tries to make it as presentable as possible. She then begins preparing
dinner. Jim comes home right on schedule and, as soon as sees Della without her long, beautiful
hair, he was shocked and confused. When she questions him, he hands her a gift and tells her
that it is his Christmas present to her and that she will understand his reaction once she sees it.
She opens it and sees that it contains a set of combs that she had been yearning forever since
she had seen them in a Broadway window. He had bought her a gift to go with her beautiful
hair, and now she had no hair to put them in.
Then Della remembers her gift for Jim and gives it to him to cheer him up but she fails
in her attempt. Jim tells her that in order to get enough money to buy the combs, he had to sell
his watch. Then Jim smiles and says that they should keep the gifts to remind themselves just
how much they love one another.
The story ends with the storyteller comparing Jim and Della's gifts to the gifts of the
Magi: the three wise men who are said to have brought the first Christmas gifts to the baby
Jesus. Jim and Della had to sacrifice their most precious belongings in order to obtain the gifts.
They showed that their love was far more valuable to them than any possession in their life.
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Short Answer Questions:
1. Who were the Youngs and what were the two possessions that they were proud of?
Ans. Della Dillingham Young: A young housewife who struggles to afford a Christmas present
for her husband, Jim. The story’s protagonist, Della is kind-hearted but impulsive. She loves
her husband deeply, and prides herself on her long, beautiful hair.
James Dillingham Young (Jim): A young husband struggling to support his wife, Della. Jim
is caring and good-natured and truly loves his wife. He is the proud owner of a valuable pocket
watch that has been passed down through his family.
2. What had Jim done to give a gift to his wife?
Ans. Jim had a pocket watch handed down to him by his father and grand father. He sold the
watch because he wanted to buy presents for his wife. Jim belonged to a poor family and was
short on money to buy the beautiful hair combs that his wife wanted. The only way he could
gift the hair combs to his wife was to sell the watch.
3. What did Della do with her hair and why?

Ans. Della wanted to present a fine, and rare gift to Jim for Christmas. When she counted that
she had only saved one dollar and eighty-seven cents by Christmas Eve, she realised he could
not afford anything nice for Jim. Hence, she decided to cut and sell her hair.

4. What was Della’s reaction on receiving the gift that Jim got for her?

Ans. When Della unpacked the gift presented by her husband, Jim, she screamed out of joy.
And then she started to wail, realizing that she had cut off her long hair and the combs were
not useful to her anymore. She hugged the gift to her bosom as she had yearned for it for a long
time and assured Jim that her hair grew fast.
******************
PARTS OF SPEECH

Parts of speech are the basic categories of words according to their function in a
sentence. It is a category to which a word is assigned in accordance with its syntactic functions.
English has eight main parts of speech, namely, Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Verbs, Adverbs,
Prepositions, Conjunctions and Interjections.

1. Nouns: A noun is a part of speech that identifies a person, place, thing, idea or events. Nouns
are the simplest among the 8 parts of speech. In a sentence, nouns can play the role of subject,
direct object, indirect object, subject complement, object complement, appositive, or adjective
as depending on the necessity.
Ex. teacher, Albany, basketball, proposal, pride
Nouns are of two types namely:
i. Concrete Nouns: A noun which can be seen or touched is called Concrete noun. It is of for
sub-types namely, Proper Noun, Common Noun, Collective Noun and Material Noun.
ii. Abstract Noun: A noun which cannot be seen or touched is called Abstract noun.
2. Pronouns: Pronouns as part of speech are the words which are used in place of nouns like
people, places, or things. They are used to avoid sounding unnatural by reusing the same noun
in a sentence multiple time.
Ex. I, you, she, her, it, everyone, somebody, hers, theirs, etc.
3. Adjectives: Adjectives are words that describe or modify a noun or a pronoun in the
sentence. The adjectives are easy to spot because they come immediately before the nouns they
modify. They are used to identify or quantify individual people and unique things and are
usually positioned before the noun or pronoun that they modify.
Ex. beautiful, green, angry, necessary
4. Verbs: Verbs as part of speech are used to signify the actions, processes, conditions, or states
of being of people or things. It is basically a word that characteristically is the grammatical
centre of a predicate. It expresses an act, occurrence, or mode of being.
Ex. walk, go, sing, are, seem, sleep
5. Adverbs: An adverb is a word that is used to change or qualify the meaning of an adjective,
a verb, a clause, or another adverb that directly modify nouns.
Ex. gracefully, very, too, loudly, finally
6. Prepositions: A preposition is a word placed before a noun or a pronoun to indicate some
relation between the noun or pronoun and some other word. The noun or pronoun that is
connected by the preposition is known as the object of the preposition.
Ex. in, on, for, to, of, with, and about, etc.
7. Conjunctions: Conjunctions are used to link different clauses together, and to join words,
phrases and sentences. By using conjunctions, we can make complex sentences that show a
connection between actions and ideas. There are three types of Conjunctions as follows:
Subordinating Conjunction, Coordinating Conjunction and Correlative Conjunctions
Ex. although, because, whether, while, , and, nor, but, or, yet, either --- or, neither -- nor
8. Interjections: It is a word used to express emotions or some sudden outburst of feeling.
Usually, an interjection is used in informal language.
Ex. Hey!, Oh!, Damn!, Wow!, alas!
******************

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