The Gift Of The Magi Text
The Gift Of The Magi Text - Our editors will review your request and decide if the article is worth reviewing. Our editors will review your request and decide if the article is worth reviewing. The Gift of the Magi, a short story by O. Henry, published in the New York Sunday World in 1905 and later collected in The Four Million (1906).
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The Gift Of The Magi Text
The story concerns James and Della Dillingham Young, a young couple who, despite their poverty, decide to exchange an exquisite gift on Christmas Eve. Della sells her beautiful long hair to buy a platinum chain for Jim's antique gold watch. Meanwhile, Jim pawns his prized watch to buy jeweled tortoiseshell combs for Della's prized tresses.
One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And of them, sixty cents are in the smallest money - pennies. Penny saved one and two at a time by negotiating with the market men who sold vegetables and meat. Negotiate until her face burns with the silent awareness of poverty.
Della counted three times. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day will be Christmas. It is clear that there was nothing left but to sit and cry. That's why Della cried. She made me think that life is made up of little cries and smiles, and there are more cries than smiles.
Theme And Moral
Della stopped crying and wiped her face. She stopped by the window and looked disapprovingly at the gray cat walking along the gray fence in the gray courtyard. Tomorrow was Christmas and she only had one dollar and eighty-seven cents to buy her husband, Jim, a present.
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She saved every penny she could for months and achieved this. Jim was making twenty dollars a week, which wasn't too far off. The costs turned out to be higher than he expected. I always am. She spent many happy hours planning to buy him something nice.
Something beautiful and rare, something close to being worthy of the honor of belonging to Jim. A tall glass mirror stood between the windows of the room. Suddenly Della turned away from the window, stopped in front of the mirror and looked at herself. Her eyes sparkled, but her face lost color in twenty seconds.
She quickly let her hair down and pushed it down to its full length. Mr. and Mrs. James Dillingham Young had two properties which they valued. One was Jim's gold watch, the watch of his parents and grandparents. Another was Dallas hair. If the Queen of Sheba lived in their palace, Della would let her hair dry outside the window to diminish the value of the queen's jewels.
Theme And Moral
So now her beautiful Della hair fell around her, shimmering in a cascade of brown. It reached below her knees and almost became a cover for her. And then quickly put it back. She stood still as some tears fell to the floor. She put on her coat and her old brown hat.
Moving quickly, eyes still glittering, she danced out the door and down the street. Where she stopped there was written: “Madame Sofroni. All kinds of hair products." Della ran up the stairs to the store, panting. "I'm buying hair," Madame said. "Take off your hat and let's have a look." "Twenty dollars," Madame said. , lifting her hair expertly. The next two hours flew by like on wings. Della went shopping to pick out a gift for Jim. She finally found it. It was probably made for Jim and no one else. It was a chain: plain round silver links. It was a perfect match for Jim's gold watch. As soon as he saw it, he knew it had to be for him. It looked like him. Peace of mind and a great price. He gave it to the clerk twenty-one dollars and ran home with the remaining eighty-seven cents. When Della returned home, she began to restore what was left of her hair. Her hair was spoiled by her love and desire to give a special gift. Repair the damage it was very demanding work.In forty minutes her head was covered with tiny round curls of hair that made her look eerily like a schoolboy.
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She looked long and hard at herself in the glass mirror. If Jim doesn't kill me before I look at me again, she said to herself, let's say, I look like a girl singing. But what could I do - oh! What could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?
By seven in the evening the coffee was ready and the pan at the back of the stove was hot and ready to cook the meat. Jim was never late home from work. Della held a silver chain in her hand and she sat down by the door.
She then she heard her step and went white for just a minute. She had a way of saying a little silent prayer over the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered, "Please let him think I'm still pretty." The door opened and Jim entered.
He looked thin and very serious. Poor man, he was only twenty-two and had to take care of his wife. He needed a new coat and gloves to keep his hands warm. Jim stopped in the doorway, motionless as a dog, when he smelled a bird.
His eyes were fixed on Della. They had an expression she couldn't read and it scared her. It wasn't anger, or surprise, or fear, or any of the feelings she was ready for. He just looked at her with a strange expression on her face.
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Della approached him. “Jim, my dear,” she cried, “don't look at me like that. I was cut and sold because I couldn't make it through Christmas without giving you a present. My hair will grow back. to do this my hair grows very fast. Say, "Merry Christmas! Jim, and make us happy. Don't you know what a... what a nice present I have for you."
You cut your hair? Jim asked slowly, as if he hadn't absorbed the information even after his mind was working hard. “Cut it down and sell it,” Della said. “Don't you like me just as well? I'm the same person without hair, right? Jim looked around the room as if he were looking for something.
“You don't have to look for him,” Della said. “It's sold, I tell you—sold and gone too. It's Christmas Eve, boy. Be nice to me, because it's cut out for you. no one has ever been able to count my love for you. Shall I put the meat, Jim?
Jim seemed to wake up quickly and hugged Della. Then he pulled a parcel out of his coat and tossed it on the table. “Don't get me wrong, Dell,” he said. “I don't think there's a haircut that my girlfriend would like less. But if you open this package, you can see why you scared me in the first place.'' White fingers quickly tore at the string and paper.
A cry of joy was heard; and then, alas! switch to tears and screams, requiring the man of the house to use all his skill to comfort his wife. Because there were her combs, a special set of hair-holding items that she Della had wanted ever since she'd seen them in the window.
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