The Gift Of The Magi Setting
The Gift Of The Magi Setting - Thanks for exploring this supersummary study guide of "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry. SuperSummary, a modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, provides high-quality study guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of key themes, characters, quotes, and essay topics. "The Gift of the Magi" is a classic Christmas story about love and sacrifice.
Source: slideplayer.com
The Gift Of The Magi Setting
O. Written by Henry (pseudonym of noted short story writer Willian Sidney Porter), the story was first published in December 1905 in the New York Sunday World. James (Jim) Dillingham Young and his wife Della live in poverty. Jim's salary was recently reduced to $20 per week.
O. Henry highlights their financial difficulties with a description of the apartment: “Downstairs there was a letter box that was too small for letters. There was an electric bell, but it didn't make a sound" (1). He continues: "There was a mirror in the middle of the room's window. You may have seen mirrors placed in $8 furnished rooms. It was very narrow" (2).
Besides living in a run-down apartment, Jim and Della don't have proper winter clothes. O. Henry writes of Jim: "He looked very thin and he didn't smile. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two—and he had a family to care for! He needed a new coat and nothing to cover his cold hands" (4).
The Gift Of The Magi Summary And Study Guide
Despite their poverty, Della and Jim have two prized possessions: Jim's gold watch and Della's long, luxuriant hair. These two precious possessions symbolize for both characters that they have more social value than their current life circumstances suggest. The story opens on Christmas Eve with Della in deep despair because, despite months of careful saving and budgeting, she only has $1.87 to buy her husband a Christmas present.
Source: image3.slideserve.com
While combing her hair in front of her narrow mirror, Della has an idea. She decides to cut her hair and sell it to buy Jim a present. While Jim is at work, Della visits Mrs. Sofroni's shop where Mrs. Sofroni offers her $20 for her hair.
After getting her haircut, Della spends two hours shopping for the perfect gift for Jim. He finally finds a gold watch that matches Jim's watch. O. Henry wrote, "As soon as he saw it, Jim knew it had to be. It was like him. Peace and value—both Jim and Chen had peace and value" (3).
Della anxiously awaits Jim's return that evening, fearing he no longer thinks she is beautiful. In fact, when Jim sees her for the first time, he is shocked. He looks around the small apartment and tries to find her hair, while she pleads with him and assures him that her hair will grow back.
Your Password Reset Email Should Arrive Shortly.
To explain his strange reaction, Jim gives Della a package. She opens the gift and finds a set of hairdos that she had often admired in the store window but never expected to own because of the price. She is overwhelmed by both the present and the fact that her hair is gone (5).
Della excitedly gives Jim her gift. The narrator says, "The gold seemed to glow faintly, like his own warm and loving soul. 'Isn't it perfect, Jim? I've searched all over town to find it'" (6) but Jim sells his watch to buy Della's gift. Both Della and Jim sacrificed their most prized possessions to buy each other a Christmas present that they knew each other would appreciate.
Source: ph-static.z-dn.net
The depth of their love: "Among those who give and take gifts, they are the wisest" (6) 'The Gift of the Magi' by American short story writer O. A short story of Henry, whose real name was William Sidney Porter. 1862–1910) His stories are characterized by their irony, their chatty narrative style, their occasional sentimentality and their surprising endings.
All of these things became a signature feature, and 'Magi's Gift' embodies all of them to some extent. But what is the meaning of this Christmas story? Below O. You may want to read 'The Gift of the Magi' before continuing with our summary and analysis of Henry's story.
Something Went Wrong
We will discuss some key themes of 'The Gift of the Magi' in a separate post. It's Christmas Eve. Jim and Della are a married couple who live in a modestly furnished flat in New York. They have little money. The story begins with Della upset because she only has one dollar and 87 cents to spend on a Christmas present for her husband.
The narrator tells us that the couple each have possessions of which they are very proud. For Jim, it's a gold watch that belonged to his father and, before that, his grandfather. Della's prized possession is her beautiful hair. Della goes to a woman who sells hair products.
This woman agrees to buy Della's hair for twenty dollars. With the newly acquired money, Della goes to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim's gold watch. It costs him twenty-one dollars, leaving only eighty-seven cents in the whole world. When she gets home, she starts curling what's left of her hair so it's presentable.
Source: cdn.shopify.com
When Jim comes home, he is surprised by his wife's actions, but when she tells him why she cut her hair, he hugs her and gives her the gift he bought her: two jeweled tortoiseshell combs that he had long ago. Shop window. . The combs are useless to her until the hair grows back, but at least she can give Jim her gift... But in a final twist, Jim tells Della that he sold the gold watch to pay for the expensive comb.
Literary Devices
So now she has two combs but no hair to use them, and she has a platinum chain for a gold watch she no longer owns. O. Many of Henry's short stories - most of which are only five or six pages long - are characterized by their satirical twists and turns, and "The Gift of the Magi" is a good example of this characteristic of his work.
In an effort to buy each other their dream Christmas presents, young Jim and Della sacrifice items intended for their gifts: a comb for Della's (sold) hair and a chain for Jim's (sold) watch. As the narrator points out in the last paragraph: The magicians, you know, were wise men—wonderful wise men—who brought gifts to the baby in the manger.
They invented the art of Christmas gift giving. Being wise, their gifts were undoubtedly wise, perhaps with the privilege of exchange in the case of imitation. And here I tell you the dull history of two foolish children in an apartment who very foolishly sacrificed their house's greatest treasure for each other.
But O. Henry invites us not to laugh at their folly, but to celebrate their sacrifice. Indeed, they had not folly but wisdom, as the narrator remarks in the closing words of the story: But in a final word to the wise men of the age, it must be said that these two were among the gift givers.
gift of the magi summary, the gift of the magi answer key, the gift of the magi analysis, gift of the magi study guide, the gift of the magi pdf, gift of the magi questions, the gift of the magi theme, gift of the magi worksheets