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The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry: Summary, Theme & Analysis

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Lesson Transcript
Instructor: Francesca Marinaro

Francesca M. Marinaro has a PhD in English from the University of Florida and has been teaching English
composition and Literature since 2007.
This lesson covers O. Henry's famous short story, ''The Gift of the Magi''. We'll cover the story's plot, analyze
some of its major themes, and nish with a brief quiz.

Plot Summary
The Gift of the Magi is a well-known short story by American short story writer O. Henry, the
pen name of William Sydney Porter. The story rst appeared in The New York Sunday World
on December 10, 1905 and was later published in O. Henry's collection The Four Million on April
10, 1906.
The story tells of a young married couple, James, known as Jim, and Della Dillingham. The
couple has very little money and lives in a modest apartment. Between them, they have only
two possessions that they consider their treasures: Jim's gold pocket watch that belonged to
his father and his grandfather, and Della's lustrous, long hair that falls almost to her knees.
It's Christmas Eve, and Della nds herself running out of time to buy Jim a Christmas present.
After paying all of the bills, all Della has left is $1.87 to put toward Jim's Christmas present.
Desperate to nd him the perfect gift, out she goes into the cold December day, looking in
shop windows for something she can aord.
She wants to buy Jim a chain for his pocket watch, but they're all out of her price range.
Rushing home, Della pulls down her beautiful hair and stands in front of the mirror, admiring
it and thinking. After a sudden inspiration, she rushes out again and has her hair cut to sell.
Della receives $20.00 for selling her hair, just enough to buy the platinum chain she saw in a
shop window for $21.00.
When Jim comes home from work, he stares at Della, trying to gure out what's dierent
about her. She admits that she sold her hair to buy his present. Before she can give it to him,
however, Jim casually pulls a package out of his overcoat pocket and hands it to her. Inside,
Della nds a pair of costly decorative hair combs that she'd long admired, but are now
completely useless since she's cut o her hair. Hiding her tears, she jumps up and holds out
her gift for Jim: the watch chain. Jim shrugs, ops down onto the old sofa, puts his hands
behind his head and tells Della atly that he sold his watch to buy her combs.

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The story ends with a comparison of Jim and Della's gifts to the gifts that the Magi, or three
wise men, gave to Baby Jesus in the manger in the biblical story of Christmas. The narrator
concludes that Jim and Della are far wiser than the Magi because their gifts are gifts of love,
and those who give out of love and self-sacrice are truly wise because they know the value of
self-giving love.

Theme and Moral

The Gift of the Magi is a classic example of irony in literature. Irony is a literary technique in
which an expectation of what is supposed to occur diers greatly from the actual outcome. In
this case, Jim and Della sacrice their most treasured possessions so that the other can fully
enjoy his or her gift. Jim sells his watch to buy Della's combs, expecting her to be able to use
them. Della sells her hair to buy Jim a chain for his watch. Neither expects the other to have
made that sacrice.
The irony here works both on a practical and on a deeper, more sentimental level. Both Della
and Jim buy each other a gift that ultimately seems nancially foolish. Being poor, they can't
aord to waste money on things they can't use. However, what they get is something they
don't expect: a more intangible gift that reminds them how much they love each other and are
willing to sacrice to make each other happy.
The story's setting at Christmas time makes it a popular story for the holiday season. Its major
theme is the dierence between wisdom and foolishness, or having or not having, a sense of
judgment and understanding.
Both Jim and Della behave impulsively, sacricing their greatest treasures without thinking
about the consequences and focusing instead on making one another happy. From an entirely
practical perspective, this doesn't make much sense because they can't enjoy the gifts that are
supposed to make them happy.
Jim and Della are thinking about the present moment and the material possessions that give
us pleasure. What they foolishly don't realize, however, is that they've given each other a
greater gift: their sacricial love. The lesson they ultimately learn is that their love for each
other is worth more than all of the material possessions money can buy. O. Henry makes a
somewhat humorous though a meaningful comparison between the Magi in the Bible and Jim
and Della at the end of the story:
The Magi, as you know, were wise men -- wonderfully wise men -- who brought gifts to the newborn
babe in the manger. 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 at who most unwisely sacriced for each other the greatest treasures of
their house. 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.

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