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The Gift of The Magi

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A Summary and Analysis of O. Henry’s ‘The Gift of the Magi’

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

‘The Gift of the Magi’ is a short story by the US short-story writer O. Henry, whose real name was William Sydney Porter (1862-1910). His stories are characterised by their irony, their chatty narrative style, their occasional sentimentality, and by their surprise twist endings.

All of these things became something of a signature feature, and ‘The Gift of the Magi’ embodies them all to some extent. But what does this Christmas story mean?

You can read ‘The Gift of the Magi’ here before proceeding to our summary and analysis of O. Henry’s story below.

We discuss some of the key themes of ‘The Gift of the Magi’ in a separate post.

‘The Gift of the Magi’: plot summary

It is Christmas Eve. Jim and Della are a married couple living in a modest furnished flat in New York. They have little money. The story opens with Della upset because she has just one dollar and eighty-seven cents to spend on a Christmas present for her husband.

The narrator tells us the married couple each have a possession in which they take great pride. For Jim, it’s a gold watch that had been his father’s and, before that, his grandfather’s. Della’s prized possession is her beautiful hair.

Della goes to a woman who deals in hair goods. This woman agrees to buy Della’s hair for twenty dollars. With the newly acquired money, Della goes to buy a platinum fob chain for Jim’s gold watch. This costs her twenty-one dollars, leaving her just eighty-seven cents in the whole world. When she gets home, she sets about curling what’s left of her hair so it looks presentable.

When Jim gets home, he is surprised by his wife’s actions, but when she explains why she had her hair cut off, he embraces her and gives her the present he has bought her: two jewelled tortoiseshell combs she has long admired in a shop window. The combs are useless to her until her hair grows out again, but at least she can give Jim his present …

But in a last twist, Jim tells Della that he sold his gold watch to pay for the expensive combs he bought for her. So now, she has two combs but no hair to use them on, and he has a platinum fob chain for a gold watch he no longer owns.

‘The Gift of the Magi’: analysis

Many of O. Henry’s short stories – the majority of which stretch to only five or six pages – are marked by their ironic twists, and ‘The Gift of the Magi’ is a good example of this typical feature of his work.

In their attempts to buy each other their dream Christmas gift, young Jim and Della end up sacrificing the very things that their presents are designed to complement: the combs for Della’s (sold) hair, and the chain for Jim’s (sold) watch. As the narrator observes in the final paragraph:

The magi, as you know, were wise men – wonderfully wise men – who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication. And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house.

But O. Henry is not inviting us to laugh at their folly, but to celebrate their sacrifice. Indeed, what motivated them was not foolishness but wisdom, as the narrator remarks in the story’s closing words:

But in a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

So there are, in a sense, two surprise twists at the end of ‘The Gift of the Magi’: the trademark plot twist which characterises most of O. Henry’s short stories, and the narratorial ‘twist’ in which he overturns our initial response – which might be to laugh good-naturedly at the unhappy turn of events which have just been narrated – and makes a moral point that Jim and Della behaved out of wisdom, even though they ended up with ‘useless’ presents from each other.

This is all well and good, but it’s worth noting that the narrator doesn’t gloss why he believes that Jim and Della were ‘wisest’ of all gift-givers. Of course, ‘wise’ here is suggested by the Magi, the Zoroastrian astrologers who, in the Gospel of Matthew , visited the infant Jesus and brought him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh: hence the title of the story.

But what makes Jim and Della wise? And why doesn’t O. Henry tell us? Is it because he wanted us to make up our own minds, or did he assume that the answer was fairly self-explanatory?

The latter seems more likely. For surely the ‘moral’ of ‘The Gift of the Magi’, given its Christmas setting and the fact that Jim and Della clearly love each other and treat each other well despite having no money to afford the finer things in life, is that love is more important than possessions. And when it comes to Christmas and buying gifts for our loved ones, it really is the thought that counts.

But there’s a little more to ‘The Gift of the Magi’ than this rather hackneyed old adage, which would reduce the story to a sentimental and rather twee fable about ‘giving being better than receiving’ and ‘love being more important than money’. Both of these statements are relevant to the story, but what is also relevant is the element of sacrifice the two characters make, and their reaction to learning the implications of this.

So Jim is happy to part with a gold watch that has been passed down the male line for three generations, while Della is happy to lose her hair (which would, despite her protestations, take many months to grow back fully) in order to purchase the gift the other one most desires. But with the story’s twist, they learn that their personal sacrifices – committed for their love of the other one – have been in vain.

But they are happy about this, not because of the gesture of buying the gift but the great cost that it has incurred for the other. Love, O. Henry seems to say, is about giving up that which you most treasure in order to show your beloved – whom you should love even more – the extent of your devotion.

In other words, what is remarkable about ‘The Gift of the Magi’ is that its moral seems to be not just ‘giving is better than receiving’ but ‘giving and losing is all that matters’, since what they receive is of no practical use to them.

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Literary Theory and Criticism

Home › Literature › Analysis of O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi

Analysis of O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on May 24, 2021

Although many critics do not view O. Henry ’s stories as first-rate literature, some of his many hundreds of tales have become classic. “The Gift of the Magi,” touching as it does a common human cord, is one of those stories. Not tragic, perhaps sentimental or a little didactic, it combines the themes of married love and selfl essness with the techniques of suspense and the O. Henry surprise ending.

Della Dillingham Young and her husband, Jim, on the edge of poverty but deeply in love, wish to purchase Christmas gifts that will surprise and please the other. The narrator focuses on Della as she tries to figure a way to find enough money to buy her husband a fine gift. Each of them has a prize possession: Jim’s is a gold watch that belonged to his father and his grandfather, and Della’s is her long, thick, luxuriant hair. Suddenly Della realizes that she could sell her hair for enough money to buy Jim a gold chain for his watch. The touches of realistic detail add to the poignancy of her sacrifice: She had only $1.87 but, with the sale of her hair, she receives the $20 to buy the watch chain.

O. Henry/Wikimedia

At home, feeling shorn and sheepish, Della greets Jim with her school-boyish haircut. Because the narrator has focused on Della’s thoughts rather than Jim’s, readers feel suspense in waiting for his response. Not only does he tell her that he will love her no matter what she does with her hair, but he gives her two beautiful jeweled, tortoiseshell combs that she had admired. When Della gives him the watch chain, he suggests putting their fine presents away for a while: He has sold his watch so that he could buy Della the combs for her hair. The narrator points out that the two may have unwisely sacrificed their valuable possessions, but they are the wisest gift givers of all. Despite the moral and the sentiment—or perhaps because of them—“The Gift of the Magi” in its very simplicity appeals to a love and loyalty for which many modern readers, no matter how sophisticated, may still yearn.

Analysis of O. Henry’s Stories

BIBLIOGRAPHY Blansfi eld, Karen Charmaine. Cheap Rooms and Restless Hearts: A Study of the Formula in the Urban Tales of Porter Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green State University Press, 1988. Henry, O. “The Gift of the Magi.” In Stories, edited by Harry Hansen. New York: Heritage Press, 1965.

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The Gift of the Magi

Ask litcharts ai: the answer to your questions.

"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 to be “greatly hugged. Which is all very good.” Their poverty doesn’t seem to affect their cozy home…

Della’s main concern is that the money she’s saved by pinching pennies isn’t enough to buy Jim a worthy Christmas present. For her, the main obstacle that poverty poses to her happiness is its limitation of her expression of love.

After the twist ending, Jim sits back on the couch and smiles, even after it’s revealed that both their gifts are now useless. Because while the gift themselves have no purpose, the giving of the…

At the beginning of the story, Della and Jim have only two prized possessions—Della’s hair and Jim’s watch . In order to overcome their poverty and to give a good Christmas present to the other, each sacrifices the item that they value the most. The sacrifices turn out to have been made rather uselessly, since the gifts they buy can’t be used. One could argue that they ended the story in the same place they…

“Gift of the Magi” constantly contrasts the idea of inner beauty and value with outside appearances. The story begins, for example, with a description of bleak surroundings (“a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray background,” “shabby couch”) while hinting at a warm home life that brightens the exterior ( Jim arrives home “to be greatly hugged”). When Della examines the watch chain, she also compares its exterior appearance and actual value to…

The History of O. Henry’s ‘The Gift of the Magi’

The beloved Christmas short story may have been dashed off on deadline but its core message has endured

Patrick Sauer

History Correspondent

The story begins just before Christmas with a small sum of money: $1.87 to be exact, 60 cents of which was in pennies. For the writer O. Henry, the pittance was enough to launch his most famous work, a fable about poverty, love, and generosity, and also likely covered the drinks he plied himself with as he crafted the tale at Healy's, the neighborhood bar.

In “ The Gift of the Magi, ” first published in 1905, two down-on-their-luck lovebirds Della and Jim make sacrifices well beyond the cost of a boozy beverage to share their Christmas spirit with each other. The beloved tale tells of Della cutting off her gorgeous past-her-knees hair described in the story as, “rippling and shining like a cascade of brown waters” for $20 to buy her man the perfect gift: a platinum fob watch chain, “simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation.” Later on that fateful Christmas Eve, Jim offers his present in kind, combs for Della’s beautiful locks, purchased after he sold his watch. The timeless, ironic twist, emblematic of O. Henry’s oeuvre, reminds readers of the oft-repeated “true meaning of Christmas.” The sentiment is tiresome and trite, but the story’s soul endures.

First published by the New York World in 1905, and then to a wider audience in the 1906 collection Four Million (named for the NYC population, it was the number of stories O. Henry, whose real name was William Sydney Porter, believed existed in his adopted city), the 2,163-word masterpiece has become a holiday standard, a slim mix of pain and joy sitting on a fireplace mantel with other redemptive Yuletide perennials like A Christmas Carol , It’s A Wonderful Life , and “Fairytale of New York.”

The mixture of sadness and sentimentality in “Gift of the Magi” befits a man whose life was marked by repeated human tragedies. Porter was born in Greensboro, North Carolina, in September 1862, the same month as the Civil War battles at Antietam and Harpers Ferry. His father was a prominent doctor and inventor whose life unraveled after his wife died of tuberculosis when William was only 3. His father retreated into a private world of tinkering with machinery— a perpetual-motion machine, a steam-driven horseless carriage, a device for picking cotton —and drinking away his troubles. The diseases of alcoholism and tuberculosis would haunt Porter throughout his life.

At 20, in hopes of relieving his own perpetual cough, the “family curse,” Porter left North Carolina for the dry air of Texas and livedwith a sheep herder who had Greensboro ties. William worked the ranch on the Nueces River near San Antonio for two years, apparently becoming a proficient broncobuster while also learning Spanish and memorizing the dictionary. Two years later, he went to Austin where he took various jobs including cigar store clerk, pharmacist, bookkeeper and draftsman for the state’s General Land Office. He also played the guitar and sang baritone for the Hill City Quartette and met and fell in love with 17-year-old Athol Estes, who he wooed by helping with her homework. They eloped and were married two years later on July 5, 1887. Athol gave birth to a son in 1888, who died hours after birth; the following year, the couple had a daughter, Margaret.

Porter’s life was rife with sorrow, but outwardly, at least, he was seen as a good-natured raconteur with a sharp wit, especially after a few belts. On the ranch, he’d begun jotting down stories, mainly with a Wild West theme, but not doing anything with them. In Austin, with Athol’s encouragement, he upped his literary output and began submitting stories to the Detroit Free Press and Truth , a New York-based magazine featuring the likes of Stephen Crane. Along the way, he took a job as a teller at First National Bank and 1894, borrowed $250 from the bank (with a note signed by a couple of drinking buddies), bought a printing press and started self-publishing a weekly magazine. The Rolling Stone . Featuring stories, cartoons, and humor pieces, it found a local audience with print runs of more than 1,000. For a hot second, times were good.

“The little cottage [Potter] rented and lived in with his wife and children is now a museum. It’s in the middle of downtown Austin’s skyscrapers and looks even more modest and sweet than it did before the city grew,” says Laura Furman , a fiction writer who served as the series editor for the O. Henry Prize stories from 2002-19 . “The house doesn’t have many authentic O. Henry possessions but there’s enough in it to give you a sense of what his brief-lived family life might have been like. It’s widely believed that he was his happiest in that house. The happiness of family life didn’t last long for him.”

The Rolling Stone never made much money or made it beyond Austin, so Porter shut it down in 1895, later telling the New York Times that it had all the hallmarks of getting “mossy.” He decamped to Houston to write columns for the Daily Post, but was called back to court in Austin. The First National Bank, which had been freewheeling and informal in its lending practices, accused him of embezzling $5,000. Instead of facing the charges, Porter fled the country, eventually landing in Honduras, which had no extradition treaty with the United States. (It’s where he coined the term “ banana republic, ” in his story “ The Admiral,” which appeared in his first book, Cabbages and Kings .)

It was a short stay. After seven months, Porter returned to Texas to care for Athol who was suffering from tuberculosis. She died in July 1897. (In 1916, C. Alphonso Smith, a childhood friend of O. Henry’s, wrote that Della was modeled on Athol.) This time, he stayed in the Lone Star state and faced the music. In February 1898, William Sydney Porter was found guilty of embezzling $854.08 and sentenced to five years in federal prison at the Ohio Penitentiary. Various biographers , including Smith , have long held the evidence of serious criminal intent was flimsy and that while Porter kept haphazard records, bank mismanagement was more to blame, and he was actually punished for going on the lam. Porter who was never good with money and routinely walked the line of being dead broke, always maintained his innocence. From the North Carolina History Project :

“ When confronted with his crime, William would write his mother-in-law and claim, ‘I am absolutely innocent of wrongdoing in that bank matter…I care not so much for the opinion of the general public, but I would have a few of my friends still believe there is good in me.’ The Ohio Penitentiary was a harsh life for prisoners, but William received partial treatment due to his skills as a pharmacist. Allowed a higher status than the normal prisoner, William was given more free time, and it was during these long night hours that William adopted the pseudonym O. Henry and penned some of his best short stories.”

The official reason behind “O. Henry” as a pen name has never been fully established. An Inkwell of Pen Names links it to a cat from his childhood named “Henry the Proud,” a verse from a cowboy song called “Root, Hog, or Die.,” while the writer Guy Davenport , who wrote introductions to multiple collections believes it was a twist on “Ohio Penitentary” while also keeping his true identity safe in prison—the stories O. Henry wrote doing time were sent to the wife of an incarcerated banker in New Orleans to be sent out to editors—but the author himself claimed it was simply easy to write and say. The pseudonym may be a mystery, but his success was not. The first story published as O. Henry was “Whistling Dick’s Christmas Stocking.” Appearing in McClure’s magazine in December 1899, it tells the tale of a “professional tramp,” a fateful gift from a passing surry, and a good night’s sleep on Christmas Eve.

Released after three years for good behavior, O. Henry moved to Pittsburgh where Margaret, now 12, lived with her grandparents. She was never told of his being incarcerated, only that dad was away on business. (Tragically, Margaret too would die at 37 from tuberculosis, three days after getting married from her deathbed.) O. Henry didn’t stay long. He headed to the heart of the publishing world, New York City, the crowded relentless cosmopolitan polyglot he fell in love with and nicknamed “Baghdad-on-the-Subway.” The streetlife of New York would be a major inspiration for O. Henry as he penned some 380-some-odd stories while living in the Gramercy Park area. The nightlife, however, would exact a bigger toll as O. Henry drank himself to an early grave at the countless number of joints just like Healy’s. On June 5, 1910, at the age of 47, O. Henry died from cirrhosis of the liver and other health complications. (Many years later, his second wife from a short marriage, Sarah Lindsey Coleman, would emphatically proclaim he died from diabetes, not the bottle.)

Nestled away on 18th St. near Gramercy Park, just a couple blocks from the bustling Union Square holiday markets, Pete’s Tavern welcomes tipplers with an awning reading “The Tavern O. Henry Made Famous.” The writer lived across the street at 55 Irving Place in a first floor apartment featuring three large windows where he could look out at his second home across the street, which was then named Healy’s Cafe . (First opened in 1864, the bar would be renamed Pete’s in 1922 after Peter Belles purchased the establishment, which today claims itself as the longest continuous tavern in New York City. During Prohibition, the flower shop in front led to the booze in the back, likely protected from police raids by its nearby proximity to Tammany Hall.)

The hard-drinking Henry became a regular at Healy’s and was said to consider it an extension of his office at the New York World , who hired him for $100 a week for a single story. Healy’s even made it into O. Henry’s story ‘The Lost Blend,’ but in disguise as “Kenealy’s,” perhaps to keep his favorite watering hole to himself.

According to biographer David Stuart, in late autumn 1905, a new World editor decided Henry’s salary far exceeded his output and ordered him fired. Unbeknownst to Henry, the World still wanted him to write up until his contract expired in December. So it came as a shock to Henry when, shortly before the World ’s big Christmas special edition came out on December 10, an office boy knocked on his apartment door looking for a contribution. The lackey wasn’t leaving without a story so O. Henry sat down and banged out “Gift of the Magi” in “two feverish hours” according to the faded plaque outside his apartment building. It fit Henry’s pattern of writing overnight, on deadline , and delivering at the last minute, but usually with pristine copy that didn’t require much editorial heavy lifting.

On the whole, “Gift of the Magi” encapsulates the best of what O. Henry stories accomplish, a brief lived-in human experience. One that is often, for good, bad, or in-between, given over to an unwanted fate, only to be rescued through a combination of sentimentality and his patented surprise ending.

“O. Henry had a strong sense of form; if you read a story of his blind, you’d be able to identify it as an O. Henry story by the movement of the action, leading up to his famous trick—the twist at the end,” says Furman. “The twist is really a wringing out of the plot elements and revealing something that was there all along but the reader hadn’t noticed. He was less interested in style than in getting a reaction from his reader. That performative aspect of his stories and his relationship to the reader as audience has appeal to writers now.”

Despite the plaque on 55 Irving Place, the question of where O. Henry scribbled down his masterwork remains an open one. Folklore handed down from generations of the tavern’s owners claims it was authored inside Pete’s—a sacred booth includes multiple pictures and a handwritten letter O. Henry wrote as William Sydney Porter deferring on a dinner invitation—but at least one dissenter claims it was authored in Henry’s apartment. Written in 1936, The Quiet Lodger of Irving Place is a series of reminisces about O. Henry’s time in New York City by his friend and colleague William Wash Williams. In it, Williams says “Gift of the Magi” was written in the room O. Henry rented. No official documentation exists either way, but what truly matters is the story has become synonymous with Pete’s Tavern, the New York City holiday season, and the wonderfully brighly festooned intersection of the two.

“Some of the decorations we have are over 50 years old, so I’d say the Christmas season has always been important to us here at Pete’s,” says general manager and tavern historian Gary Egan , who started working there as a waiter and bartender in 1987. “Every year, five of us put up all the lights and decorations. We close early and go from midnight to eight in the morning for three weeks straight. And at home, I make gallons and gallons of eggnog and bring it in. It’s brutal.”

Egan means the holiday stretch, of course, not the egg nog, which is delicious. Made with brandy, a glass runs $13, which could’ve probably bought a quality timepiece and a full-length wig in O. Henry’s day, but late on a Tuesday afternoon, with a wintry mix flurrying about the setting sun, before the boisterous crowds shuffled in, it wasn’t hard to be transported to Christmases past and to toast the spirit of Della and Jim in the reflected glow of a sea of red lights.

“[O. Henry’s] such an American character and it’s too bad an ‘O. Henry’ story has become somewhat of a cliche,” says Amanda Vaill , a writer and former book publisher who edited a 1994 collection of his works. “His other works deserve a bigger audience, but I also still vividly remember reading Magi at age 10 in a holiday anthology and thinking, ‘Oh, my gosh. Oh, no . No! NO!’ I was struck by the cruelty of the universe and the kindness of the characters within it.”

Furman has a similar recollection, saying, “I have fond memories of reading ‘Gift of the Magi’ as a child and thinking hard about the misfortune of the two main characters. It bothered me that they both failed in their presents. That’s how I saw it then. Later, I had an appreciation of the story’s cleverness and how tightly constructed it was—and I understood that it really didn’t matter if the presents weren’t the right ones since, in O. Henry’s view, their sacrifice was a sign of their love. I was more focused as a child on the presents than love.”

One reason the “Gift of the Magi” has had a longer time in the spotlight than any of the estimated 600 other stories O. Henry wrote over his lifetime--which were extremely popular, by 1920, a decade after his death, some five-million copies of his books had been sold in the United States —is that its seasonal message and framework has been paid homage for years.

The first one, The Sacrifice , was a silent film directed by D.W. Griffith in 1909. Later versions include O. Henry’s Full House , a 1952 quintet of his stories tied together by on-screen narrator John Steinbeck in his lone acting credit , a 1999 animated riff featuring the famous Disney mice and a harmonica in Mickey’s Once Upon A Christmas , and a tender 2014 Greek short film set during the country’s recent financial crisis. It’s also been a staple television plot, be it in a 1955 “ Honeymooners” episode in which Ralph Kramden pawns his beloved bowling ball, a 1988 “ Saturday Night Live” parody lampooning a future president impersonated by Phil Hartman and a gold-plated jewel-encrusted golf club door, and the one that introduced many a young Gen-Xer, myself included, to the O. Henry classic. In the 1978 special “ Christmas Eve on Sesame Street ”, Bert and Ernie follow the formula with a rubber duckie-for a cigar box/paper clip collection-for a soapdish trade. (In the end, Mr. Hooper shows up in the fuzzy roommates bedroom, returns their original items, and tells his Muppet pals they gave him the best gift of all.)

$1.87 might not buy a cup of holiday cheer anymore, but it remains holiday central at Pete’s Tavern, thanks to O. Henry’s deadline masterpiece, be it written with a stiff drink in a booth or not. The holidays are Egan’s craziest time, yet, given a chance to reflect on the Della, Jim, and the dewy-eyed scribe who made his tavern famous, the insanity of the season slips away, for a moment anyway.

“‘Gift of the Magi’ is heartwarming, a beautiful story with a hint of sadness,” he says. “It’s Christmas.”

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Patrick Sauer | | READ MORE

Raised in Billings, Montana,  Patrick Sauer  is a Brooklyn-based freelance writer who primarily covers sports, history and sports history. His work has appeared in the New York Times , Smithsonian , Defector , Los Angeles Times , Montana Quarterly and countless publications that no longer exist.

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• O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” and Poe’s “The Tell-Tale Heart” The two stories “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allen Poe and “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry’s story explores the positive aspects of these concepts, Poe delves into more negative, darker dimensions through […]
• The Gift of the Magi Given the fact that, as it was implied earlier, ever since it was first published in 1906, The Gift of the Magi never ceased appealing to readers, we can well assume that the themes and […]
• “The Gift of the Magi” Short Story by O. Henry The irony of the story is that there is no longer a watch that could be used with the chain, and there is no longer beautiful hair to brush with a set of luxurious combs.
• “In the American Society” and “The Gift of the Magi” The act of giving is described as the presentation of a gift to the intended individual with the purpose of pleasing or offering assistance to the recipient.
• The Analysis of Two Literary Works In this paper I would like to analyze the novel The House on Mango Street, written by Sandra Cisneros and the short story The Gift of the Magi by O.
• Gold Watch Symbol in O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” The watch symbolizes Jim’s links to the family he was born and raised in, the family he abandons to begin a fresh home with Della his companion.
• Positive Impact of “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry However, in my opinion, “The Gift of the Magi” is one of the most powerful pieces of writing I have encountered.
• “The Gift of the Magi” :A Symbol of Human Life The main symbols of the story are tortoiseshell hair combs and a platinum chain for a pocket watch the symbols of sacrifice and devotion.
• Narratological Interpretation Referring to O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” In this context, a literary text becomes perceived as a narrative discourse or the description of a series of events to represent a certain story or a plot through accentuating actions performed by the characters […]
• “The Gift of the Magi” & “The Rocking Horse Winner”: Comparison In the Gift of the Magi, the story revolves around the unconditional love of a husband and wife, Jim and Della.
• Comparative Literature: Kate Chopin’s “The Storm” and O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi” Although Chopin uses the metaphor of storm in order to describe the adultery and the female character’s desire and passion, the speaker’s presentation of the love affair is extremely realistic and focused on details.
• Unconditional Love and Money Can’t Buy Happiness in “The Gift of the Magi,” “All My Love,” “You and I,” and “Holding Hands”
• Theme and Narrative Elements in the Short Story of “The Gift of the Magi”
• The Theme of Love in the Short Story “The Gift of the Magi”
• The Irony of the Short Stories “The Necklace” and “The Gift of the Magi”
• The Symbol of the Gifts and the Young Couple in “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
• Playscript of “The Gift of the Magi”
• Suspense and Irony in “The Tell-Tale Heart” and “The Gift of the Magi”
• The True Meaning of Love and Sacrifice: A Character Analysis of Della Young From O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi”
• Investigating the Act of Caring in “The Gift of the Magi”
• Character of Madame Loisel From “The Necklace” and “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
• The Lessons Learned From “The Gift of the Magi”
• The Demonstration of Self Sacrifice Between “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Cabiluwallah”
• Hearty Gifts Such as the Della and Jim’s in “The Gift of the Magi”
• Brief Comparison and Contrast of “The Necklace” and “The Gift of the Magi”
• Theme of Sacrifice in “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
• The Strength of Love in the Short Story “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry and the Poem “How Do I Love Thee?” by E.B. Browning
• The Tone and Style of the Narrator in “The Gift of the Magi”
• Women in Poverty in the Novels “The Necklace” Guy de Maupassant and “The Gift of the Magi”
• Crucial Values of the Short Story “The Gift of the Magi”
• The Comparative Analysis of “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Story of an Hour”
• The Perception of Marriage in “The Kiss” and “The Gift of the Magi”
• A Comparison of the Journey of the Three Wise Men and an Early Twentieth Century Couple in “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
• Use of Similes and Metaphors in “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
• The Historical Context of “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
• An Analysis of the Literary Devices in “The Gift of the Magi”
• The Theme, Irony, and Tone in “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
• The Influential Messages of Love, Offering, Tradition, and Deceptiveness of Appearance in “The Gift of the Magi”
• Human Emotions in “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Ransom of Red Chief”
• The Use of Elements in “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
• The Consequences of Capitalism: A Marxist Analysis of “The Gift of the Magi”
• True Meaning of Christmas in “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry
• Why Does O. Henry Call His Story “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Character Trait Is Revealed About Della in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Was the Gift in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Is the Irony in the Story “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Were the Three Wise Men’s Names in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Literary Technique Does O. Henry Use in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Is the Significance of 3 in the Story “The Gift of the Magi”?
• Who Is the Antagonist in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Is in the Thesis Statement “The Gift of the Magi”?
• Why Is Della Sad on Christmas Eve in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• Does the Story “The Gift of the Magi” End as You Expected?
• What Is the Story’s Central Idea, “The Gift of the Magi”?
• Why Did the Author Compare Jim and Della to the Magi in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• Why Did Della Sell Her Hair in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Literary Techniques Are Used in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• Why Jim and Della Are Called the Magi in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Main Problem Does Della Face in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Is the Moral Lesson in the Story “The Gift of the Magi”?
• How Does the Author Describe the Flat in the Story “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Is the Inciting Incident in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Are the Human Weaknesses in “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry?
• What Are the Consequences in the Story “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Was Jim’s Most Prized Possession in “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry?
• How Is the Metaphor Used in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Is the Moral of the Story “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Is the Internal Conflict in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Are the Symbols in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• Why Is Christmas Eve Such an Essential Setting in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• What Do Magi Refer to in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• How Does the Writer Use Irony in “The Gift of the Magi”?
• The Awakening Questions
• The Bluest Eye Titles
• The Crucible Research Topics
• The Necklace Titles
• The Tell-Tale Heart Research Ideas
• The Lottery Topics
• The Most Dangerous Game Paper Topics
• Hills Like White Elephants Essay Ideas
• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, December 12). 74 The Gift of the Magi Essay Topic Ideas & Examples. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/the-gift-of-the-magi-essay-examples/

"74 The Gift of the Magi Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." IvyPanda , 12 Dec. 2023, ivypanda.com/essays/topic/the-gift-of-the-magi-essay-examples/.

IvyPanda . (2023) '74 The Gift of the Magi Essay Topic Ideas & Examples'. 12 December.

IvyPanda . 2023. "74 The Gift of the Magi Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." December 12, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/the-gift-of-the-magi-essay-examples/.

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Bibliography

IvyPanda . "74 The Gift of the Magi Essay Topic Ideas & Examples." December 12, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/topic/the-gift-of-the-magi-essay-examples/.

The Gift of the Magi

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Discussion Questions

How do the narrator’s intrusive comments throughout the story affect your experience reading the story?

Compare and contrast Jim and Della’s characters.

How does the presumed setting (New York in the early 20th century) affect the characters and the plot of the story?

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