AN ANALYSIS OF "THE GIFT

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HANOI UNIVERSITY OF BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY
OF THE MAGI"
UNDERGRADUATE ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
AN O’HENRY’S SHORT
STORY
Student: Dao Thi Huong Giang
Supervisor: Ms. Nguyen Thi Chi Mai,
M.A
 OUTLINE
 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ABOUT O’HENRY
 2.1. O’Henry’s background
 2.2. O’Henry’s writing styles
 CHAPTER 3: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS ON ‘THE GIFT OF
THE MAGI’
 3.1. Love – a beautiful and forever lasting theme.
 3.2. Invaluable sacrifice in the story
 3.3.  The literary techniques used in “the gift of the magi”
 3.3.1. Metaphors
 3.3.2. Break the grammar rules
 3.3.3. Twist endings
 CHAPTER 4: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
 RATIONALE
The reason to do the research:
 1st: to fully understand the value of love in human’s life in
general and in American’s life in detail.

 2nd: help the young of Vietnam know the hope of love of

American youngster, have knowledge of American’s
culture (the similarities and differences).

 3rd: to well adapt with my career in the future.

 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. O’Henry’s background
 Born on September 11th, 1862 in Polecat Creek

 joined the Houston Post as a columnist

 started to write short stories to earn money to

support his daughter Margaret.
 After suffering three years of the five years
sentence and being released on good behavior,
Porter emerged from the prison in 1901 and
changed his name to O' Henry.
2.2. O’HENRY’S WRITING STYLES
1. Common Themes
 Deception

 Mistaken identity

 The effects of coincidence

 The unchangeable nature of the fate

 The resolution of seemingly unsolvable difficulties separating two

lovers.
2. Twist endings (surprise endings)
 Life is a surprise that the unexpected continually happens

 A surprise at the end of the story can bring joy to readers.

 The key to a surprise is that it has to be believable.

 Consider the surprise endings in "The Last Leaf" and "The Third
Ingredient." , “The gift of the Magic”
 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ON “THE GIFT OF THE MAGI”

3.1. Love – a beautiful and forever lasting theme.

The story:
- features two main characters, Della and her twenty two year old
husband Mr. James Dillingham Young.
- Has a very interesting turn of events clustered with emotions of love
and care
- Starts on a Christmas Eve with Della bursting into tears on the couch
because she cannot afford to buy her husband a gift with only $1.87
dollars.
The portrayal of Della’s concerns :
- is used to build the theme of love that greatly features within the story.
- serves to indicate the desperate state of poverty that the couple lives in.
This is indeed a surprising turn of events (sad and emotional).
 The couple displays great love for each other, because they both show
a desire to offer their partners the best gift possible.
3. TECHNIQUES OF O.HENRY
Local language

 O.Henry’s writings:
- take the speech patterns and rhythms of the
common folk.
- add vivacity, variety, and interest of his
stories.
 He puts out a realistic dialogue from his
childhood, his own history, and first hand
observations of the various classes of people
he knew and lived with.
Ex: “Whistling Dick’s Christmas Stocking,”
“Georgia’s Ruling”
Allusions
 O.Henry’s artistry with words can be seen in his many literary
allusions, especially toward Shakespearean plays and the
ancient classics.
 Allusions to Shakespeare found in O.Henry’s stories show a
tendency to word-play or to an unexpected turn similar to that
manifest of the plots of his stories
Slang
 His vocabulary contained a lot of slang words and phrases

 The presence of slang makes O.Henry more favorable to the

general public
 “O.Henry is a master of felicitous expressions and strange
verbal flavors.” (Current-Garcia, O.Henry, 136)
The portrayal of Jim:
- Jim is overburdened with the responsibilities
of a family only at twenty two
- He has many needs that he cannot fulfill for
himself and his family
- He had no gloves and he was in bad need of a
new overcoat, but he was able to forego all his
needs to get Della her coveted combs which
were definitely expensive.
=> His actions portray both love and sacrifice -
the main themes of the story.
There was no greater sacrifice that would
have been offered apart from what the two did.
 Love is almost the same everywhere in the
world, needs sacrifice and compromise. In the
short story “The gift of the Magi”, we can see
this in details.
3.2. INVALUABLE SACRIFICE IN THE
STORY
 The story centers on a couple (Jim and Della) whose love for each
other seems to be the greatest treasure in their lives.
 Each of them offers up for sale some of their most priced
possessions that they highly treasure for the sake of expression for
their love for each other
 Today, people still use material things to show their loved ones
how much they care (compensate for lost time or lack of affection
by buying each other a special something)
 What people fail to realize is that value should never be placed on
an object but on the act itself.
 And here is the act such as Jim and Della’s who sacrificed the two
greatest treasures they owned.
3.3.  THE LITERARY TECHNIQUES USED IN “THE
GIFT OF THE MAGI”
 3.3.1. Metaphors
 Metaphors use one object or concept to explain another.

 In "The Gift of the Magi," the narrator compares slender Della to

a bulldozer.
 The central metaphor of O. Henry's story alludes to the wealthy
wise men, or magi, who delivered rare gifts to baby Jesus in
Matthew 2:1-18 of the Bible's New Testament.
 No wise men visit Della and Jim. O. Henry ends his story with the
metaphor, "They are the magi," in reference to Della and Jim
 One confusing metaphor in "The Gift of the Magi" contains
conflicting images. After Della sells her hair, she is happy while
shopping for Jim's gift.
3.3.2. Break the grammar rules
 It is a comic detail which is not directly
connected with love but turns out to be the
fundamental detail for the plot.
 Love plays the simple motivation for creating
the intrigue
 There are lots of sentences that aren't really
sentences, like the opening one: "One dollar
and eighty-seven cents". There's no verb or
action in that sentence; it just states a sum of
money
 Sentences start with words that grammar
sticklers not supposed to start with, like "And"
or "Which."
=> has the effect of making one sentence hinge
on the sentence before.
3.3.3. Twist endings
O. Henry is known for his "twist endings," and
the ending of "The Gift of the Magi" is probably
the most famous of them.
At the end of the story Della cuts and sells her
hair to buy Jim a chain for his watch, and Jim
sells his watch to buy Della combs for her hair.
Here we have a classic case of irony.
What makes this ending so bittersweet : their
gifts wouldn't have been useless if they hadn't
given up their prize possessions.
We follow only Della in the story => don't
know what has happened until the very end
Love isn't something they have as individuals,
it's something they share together. In the gift
exchange, the two of them come closer together
in a very concrete way.
CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
Values of the theme, humanality and literary techniques of
the story.
 Values of the theme and humanality
- The Gift of the Magi is a little drama of mutual self-sacrifice
between husband and wife (encapsulates what the world in all
its stored-up wisdom : indispensable or ordinary family life)
- Unselfish love shared, regardless of the attendant difficulties or
distractions, is the idea implied again as a major criterion in the
treatment of domestic affairs.
- In “The Gift of the Magi,” O. Henry tried to express his points
of viewing the same thing from two different levels. One of the
two levels might be an inner layer, and the other an external
layer.
 Literary techniques
In The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry's
style of narration is invariably ironic
or playful.
His writing is studded with
metaphors but only for the purpose
of amusement with the
unexpectedness of the comparisons
made - a surprise of a literary nature.
O. Henry's pervasive tendency to lay
bare the construction of the story
and subject the plot to a parody play,
the unexpectedness of his ending
acquires a special meaning in The
Gift of the Magi.
 Recommendations for further study
 Remain a lot to explore, such as philosophy, readers can
participate in O. Henry’s world, learn to prepare for their
genuine life
 The Gift of the Magi might be transformed into films or plays
=>Vietnamese people can get access to the culture and value of
the story about love and sacrifices
 People interested in writing can learn O.Henry’s writing style
and make their own piece of art in the future.
 Love is holy and it is an endless theme to explore, and I myself
might have my own writing after conducting this thesis.