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Vanessa Rodriguez

McKiddy

English 9

29 September 2016

The Gift of The Magi

“ Tomorrow would be Christmas day and she had only $1.87 to buy Jim a present.” (O.

Henry Paragraph 6). The short story “The Gift of the Magi” By O. Henry is a tale of which we

have a young couple celebrating Christmas together with the conflicting issues of not having

enough money to buy one another a gift, while they are only making the weekly income of

twenty dollars a week. Thus O. Henry develops the theme of Love is more valuable than material

items through his use of Irony and Tone.

Consequently the author uses Irony to develop bold storyline by making the ironic twist

between the two characters. “ Now there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs

in which they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been his father’s and

his grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair.” (O. Henry Paragraph 9). This following quote

describes the greatest personal belonging to each, which is showing how the author perfectly

uses irony to lead us into this theme. Later on in the story both of our characters end up selling

their belonging in order to show the other how they really appreciate all the other has done. This

formally fits the story showing us the love they each have for each other. “ It was a platinum fob

chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by

meretricious ornamentation-as all good things should do.” (O. Henry Paragraph 17). Now we see
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the sense in which the author uses protrusively uses the strong vocabulary to show us the

elegance of the present as well as having the audience to easily adapt and see the situational

irony of her purchasing something for Jim. The irony of the story plays a huge role in the

storytelling of this in order to fully show the audience the message needed to be spread.

Furthermore into the story we see the author take on many forms of tone in order to

formally give us our theme. “ Tomorrow would be Christmas day and she only had $1.87 with

which she had to buy Jim a present.” (O. Henry Paragraph 6). This gives off a deep tone of effort

and more of which disappointment, due to Della feeling it not to be enough to buy something of

which Jim should deserve. This makes her lead into more tones throughout the story showing us

her love for Jim, offsetting any other tones of disappointment that Della has which gives us the

love tone throughout this. “ ‘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.’” ( O.

Henry Paragraph 26). This quote offsets another tone with more anxiousness as to whether her

love was worth it which strongly supports as to why the author’s theme.

With all given the author gives us the theme of, ​Love is more valuable than material

items, b​ y using irony and tone to fully help the audience understand the story for what it is. Della

ironically cut off her hair, which was her most prized possesion, all to give Jim a christmas

present, as for Jim sold his watch to get Della Beautiful combs for her hair. This shows that they

value one another’s love more than and item. We also get the strong tones of love, and overall

conflict which develops into the theme of the story itself being, ​Love is more valuable than

material items.