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The Gift of the Magi Summary " The Gift of the Magi" is a 1905 short story by O. Henry about Jim and Della, an impoverished young couple who make sacrifices in order to buy each other meaningful ...
Full Plot Summary. The story begins the day before Christmas with a young woman named Della sitting at home counting her savings. The home she lives in with her husband, Jim, is a cheap, furnished rental apartment. When they first moved in Jim was earning more money, but the couple has fallen on hard times and now live in poverty.
8 THE GIFT OF THE MAGI not among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on. Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table. “Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less.
Contents. The Gift of Magi is a short story written by an American short story writer, William Sydney Porter. He has written his literary works under the pen name of O’ Henry. This story was first published in 1905. It is a sentimental tale of a financially upset couple. Both of them sold out their prized possessions in order to buy presents ...
The setting of “Gift of the Magi” likely reflects O. Henry’s location at the time in New York City. In 1906, New York was still a shipping city, bustling and packed. There were no skyscrapers yet, and South Street was still an important commercial district rather than the tourist attraction it would become by the end of the century.
Value. "Gift of the Magi" revolves around a young couple, Della and Jim, who lack a lot in the way of material possessions and external amusements. The beginning of the story focuses on their poverty—the shabby couch, the lack of mirror, the eight-dollar flat, the broken doorbell. Despite this, the narrator adds that Jim always arrives home ...
The Gift of the Magi. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one's cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied. Three times Della counted it.
