The Gift of the Magi Essay
Uploaded by Evirejimenez1 on Jan 14, 2021
“The Gift of the Magi”
Essay
It is a big effort to show love, no matter the status. This story shows the struggle between a couple to
exchange gifts making a big and hard sacrifice to prove love one to another. The value of any gift does
not count but the intention does really count. There are dark days but love fights everything. In the short
story “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry, the author uses figurative language to demonstrate the central
idea that Love can handle everything. Metaphor is a figure of speech to compare two things without using
“like” or “as”. Alliteration is the repetition of the beginning consonant of a word. Symbolism is the word
used to represent something beyond the literal meaning. O. Henry uses all of these devices to paint the
beautiful story in the “The Gift of the Magi”.
Within the short story, O. Henry uses figurative language to support the central idea that Love can
handle everything even in the toughest times which is evidenced several times. The first example of
figurative language is when he says, “Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer”
(lines, 2-3). This shows us that they do not have enough money even doing a big effort to save every
single penny. Della is compared to a bulldozer working so hard to buy Jim a gift. The second example of
figurative language is when O. Henry says, “Life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles
predominating” (line, 2). This means that life has sad and happy moments even when the tears fall down
when there is no money to get the person's wants and get everyone’s wishes. The third example of
figurative language is when he says, “She stood by the window and looked out dully at the gray cat
walking a gray fence in a gray backyard” (lines, 25-26). The repetition of “g” in the gray color is also a
symbolism of sadness because it’s almost Christmas and the lack of money to buy a gift to exchange one
to another.
In conclusion, finally in the short story, by using the literary element of figurative language in the
“The Gift of the Magi”, the author clearly establishes the central idea where Love can struggle with
everything. People that are willing to give up what means the most to them for the person they love. In
the story, the couple acts on impulse as each strives to please their spouse. Della Young and Jim...