The Gift of the Magi Summary
The Gift of the Magi or The Gifts is a short story of a famous American writer, O. Henry. In this article, several components of The Gift of the Magi summary are described that are:
Della's struggle for Jim's present:
Della was worried and crying in her room for she could not save enough money to buy a special gift for her husband, Jim. She had only one dollar and eighty-seven cents as her savings on the day before Christmas. Also, she struggled to save money for buying his Christmas gift for months. Nevertheless, the household expenses were higher like always than her monthly calculated budgets.
Further, their weekly income was twenty dollars a week which was already not enough for saving some dollars. Suddenly, Della decided to sell her beautiful, shinning, and long brown hair. So, she sold her hair to miss Sofonia, a buyer of hair goods, for twenty dollars.
Della's shopping period:
After leaving the shop of madam Sofonia, Della went into different shopping stores for buying her husband's gift. She kept on visiting shopping places to find a unique present for Jim. Finally, she found a gold chain for Jim's gold wristwatch in some shop, and its worth was twenty-one dollars. Although Jim's watch was beautiful, it had no chain but a thin and old leather strap for holding it. So, Della felt delighted after obtaining that chain.
On returning home, Della became sad for losing her hair and more for Jim's future reaction on what she lost. Then, she started cooking for supper. After that, she sat on the table near the front door to wait for his arrival. Before Jim stepped in, Della prayed to God silently and continuously for his thoughts about her as still a pretty woman. At last, he arrived home, and he was looking weak and tired.
A surprise for Della and Jim:
When Jim closed the door, he and Della started conversing with each other after some time. Then, Della told that she sold her hair for giving Jim a beautiful chain for his watch. Upon listening to what Della said, Jim showed Della her Christmas gift by bringing out a package from his coat pocket. When Della tore up the parcel, she became surprised and cried with joy, but that expression soon changed into sadness and tears by looking at that item.
Combs for Della by Jim:
Jim gifted Della the pair of beautiful combs with jewels in them. It was the same pair of items which she used to view for months in a window shop, but she never thought that the set could be hers. However, her hair had gone then, and those combs were of no use for her at that time. Then, a thought came into her mind about Jim's unawareness about his Christmas gift. Later, she got informed upon asking for that watch from Jim that he sold his wristwatch for buying those combs. After discovering their sacrifices for each other, Jim told Della to put aside those gifts for some time and eat supper that evening.
Introduction of William Porter
O. Henry (1862-1910) was the pen name of an American writer called William Porter. Further, he was famous for his surprise endings which gave rise to the term, O. Henry ending. Besides, in 1898, he got jailed. Also, he did not want that his readers could get informed about his imprisonment; therefore, he used the pen name as O. Henry. Plus, he published hundreds of short stories, and The Gifts or The Gift of the Magi is one of his great successful tales.
Conclusion:
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