One universal theme in the short story “A Christmas Memory” is poverty. It is a story of two friends that live together and prepare for Christmas. Their tradition for the holiday is to bake fruit cakes, decorate a tree, and exchange presents, but the friends are very poor and at the end of all the celebration they are left close to being broke. The first tradition is that they make fruitcakes. When they go to buy the whiskey from the gloomy, tall, and scared Indian man and he sees them paying with pennies he feels bad and barters with the the whiskey for the fruit cake (Capote 4).
He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad”(281). Boo was a very good person who was very empathetic towards the his
The family pair struggles to maintain enough food for themselves, but despite that the boy still tries to give up his food in order to help others. Not only did he insist in helping a man as rude as Ely, but wanted to help the lost kid on the road. “We could get him and take him with us…. I’d give that little boy half of my food”( McCarthy 86). This displays the naturally generous and unselfish characteristics of the boy.
To better highlight the mood used to establish an apprehending and astonishing resolution, the author uses situational irony to show how both Jim and Della sold their most prized possessions in order to buy the other a special Christmas present. At first we do not expect Jim will receive anything extravagant for Christmas due to the shortage of income. Instead, he receives a platinum gold chain for his pocket watch indicating Della sold her hair: "’Jim, darling,’ she cried, ‘don't look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It'll grow out again--you won't mind, will you?
The story, " Gift of the Magi" and the video version have a lot of similarities and differences. The similarities between these two stories are that they cared about the other person that lived with them because of the relationship they have had, and they thought that person deserve something special, something they would want to have or something they didn't have. One of the differences was what each story got as a gift. For the story the wife got her husband a chain for that expensive watch his grandfather gave him. He got his wife The Combs she always wanted.
Although "The Gift of the Magi" and "Bert and Ernie's Gifts" follow a similar plot line, there are many differences amongst the similarities. A large difference is that the main characters in "The Gift of the Magi" are a couple, as the main characters in "Bert and Ernie's Christmas" are friends. During both expositions, we are shown that the main characters in "Gift of the Magi" and "Bert and Ernie's Gift's" are both in financial situations in which they are unable to afford gifts for the holidays. Because of this, Della choses to trade a possession of which she values, her hair, in exchange for currency. Della then uses to currency to look for a gift.
Jonas and the Giver demonstrated this when they acted selflessly to give the community memories. This action shows the people love and self-sacrifice because the Giver and Jonas sacrificed themselves to gift the community with
The articles, “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Diamond Neckless” there are similarities and differences. Della and Mathilda are two very different characters, but they too have similarities like the fact that they wanted something they couldn’t afford. The differences are Della was selfless, and Mathilda was envious. In, “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Diamond Neckless” there alike, because they couldn’t afford what they wanted.
The irony in “The Gift of the Magi” served the purpose of helping to convey the story’s theme. In the story, the irony exists in that Della sells her hair to buy Jim a watch chain while Jim sells his watch to buy Della new combs, thus rendering each of their gifts useless. However, instead of being upset that their sacrifices were for nothing, Jim and Della are joyful in that they recognize how much the other sacrificed to do something nice for the other. This helps support the theme that the material items don’t matter as much as the care that was put into them, or, “it’s the thought that counts,” because they may not have been able to use the material gifts they were given but were still joyful and appreciative because they recognized how
In the beginning of The Gift of the Magi, William Sydney frequently uses figurative language such as symbols. Ella sacrificed her hair for her husband and sells it because she loves him. She sacrificed her hair when she tried to get the present. One symbol that porter uses is a shabby little couch.
Both sacrifice their artistic ambitions to please the person they love. Similarly in “The Gift of the Magi” Jim and Della Dillingham are a young and poor couple. Between them they have two possessions that they consider their treasures: Jim's gold pocket watch, and Della's lustrous, long hair. It's Christmas Eve, and Della is running out of time to buy Jim a Christmas present. After paying the bills, all that she has left is $1.87 to buy Jim’s Christmas present.
Being a good person overshadows the bad things in life. In the short story The Gift Of The Magi by O.Henry, Della is a good person. One reason is because she wants others to be happy . Another reason is because she wants to provide for Jim. The last reason is she has good intentions.
What she does to repay her friend is very ironic. When I say Irony, I think of it as, you think it will end one way but it really ends the other way. The theme of The Man by the Window is, life is full of disappointments but sticking together and sharing life experiences always adds a positive vibe. The theme of The Necklace is, just because you don’t have everything, doesn’t make you any less of a person.
There are many similarities and differences in “the Perfect Gift” and “the Gift of the Magi.” Each story has its own strengths and weaknesses. I believe “the Gift of the Magi” has a lot more weakness then “the Perfect Gift”. This is the reason I prefer “the Perfect Gift” more. In this essay I will explain both stories, There strengths and weaknesses but both stories revolve around love and friendship.
Unexpected sacrifices were made by both Jim and Della. Which meant much more of the thought that they were willing to give up a treasure of their own. Certain people say “It’s the thought that counts.” This is what Della and Jim appreciated about their gifts. THe thought really did count and that is what made their gift even better.
