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The Gift Of The Magi Essay

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Recommended: Literary analysis of short story

The gift of the Magi is a famous short story written by O. Henry, also known as William Sydney porter. O. Henry is mostly known for his surprising, often ironical endings to his short stories. This aspect is the pivotal reason as to why his stories are so widely recognized. One may interpret ‘The gift of the Magi’ as his most famous story. It is part of O. Henry’s second collection of short stories called four million, which were released in 1906. The title four million refers to the population of New York City at the time, since many of the stories were set there. ‘The gift of the Magi’ is perceived as a symbolic story which provides an insight to the reader about the main theme of the story, the lower class, as well as several aspects within this theme such as, poverty at the time, the value of money and the role of women in New York during the 19th and 20th century. …show more content…

They cannot afford to offer gifts to each other for Christmas. On Christmas Eve, Della finds herself with only one dollar and eighty seven cents, therefore she decides to sell her hair for twenty dollars, and she then buys Jim a chain for his gold watch. Jim also goes out after work and sells his valuable gold watch and buys Della a decorated cone for her hair. Once they discover their gifts are to no use for one another, the narrator concedes that they truly love each other which can be proven by the mutual sacrifices demonstrated for one

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