The Gift of the Magi

"The Gift of the Magi"  is a nice story to read during the Christmas Season.

Summary of O. Henry’s Famous ShortStory

By Melissa Howard

The Gift of the Magi is the story of Mr. and Mrs. James Dillingham Young, otherwise known as Jim and Della. It is Christmas Eve and all the money that Della has scrimped and saved for Jim’s gift totals one dollar and eight-seven cents.

The Young’s are very poor; a point that the narrator quickly establishes by describing the shabby estate of their apartment and by the mention of a salary that has shrunken from $30 a week to $20 a week. Della has humiliated herself by haggling at the shops and managed to scrimp away 60 cents of the $1.87 in pennies.

Della has a fit of self-pity as she tries to determine how to buy Jim a worthy gift when suddenly she jumps up and views herself in the pier glass. She lets down her glorious hair; hair that is the pride and joy of both Della and Jim. According to the narrator, Della and Jim have two possessions that are the treasures of the household, Della’s hair and Jim’s watch, which is an inheritance from his grandfather. The narrator underscores the value of these treasures by saying that King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba would be jealous of them despite their own immense wealth.



Read O'Henry's original work at Project Gutenberg.