Video Essay Script:
O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi is about a couple hoping to purchase meaningful gifts for each other, giving up their valuables in the process. The story is set in New York during the early 1900s when a near-penniless couple lives in a small flat. The story starts with Dela, the wife, upset because she only has a dollar and eighty-seven cents to buy her husband a gift. She decides to sell her most valuable possession, her hair, to buy her husband an accessory to his most prized possession, his gold watch. She then goes home to her husband to give him his gift. To her surprise, he sold his watch to give Della two expensive combs, which she could not use as she cut her hair. Although other couples may be bitter about this situation, Jim and Della are far from it, as they both appreciate the sacrifices made for each other. In the short story The Gift of the Magi, O. Henry uses temporary physical items such as a watch, money, and hair to represent sacrificial love, a more meaningful happiness.
Throughout the short story, the author focuses much more on Della and her adventures than on Jim’s, as O. Henry does not even show Jim purchasing the gift for Della. This is representative of the dynamic of their relationship; she is more extroverted and vocal, while he seems to be in the shadows and more passive. Jim has one crucial possession of his, which is his gold watch. O. Henry made this clear when he stated, “If a king had lived in the same house, with all his riches, Jim would have looked at his watch every time they met. (Henry 2).”. O. Henry never indicates why Jim loves Della so much, but one could only assume that his love for her is partly because of how much she sacrifices in her own life to love him unconditionally. Jim’s willingness to sell his watch reveals his intense sacrificial love for Della, as he hopes the joy he feels from giving the present to Della will override the feelings of losing a fleeting physical item. Jim’s love for Della is also evident through his sacrifices in possessions and his job. He is the only person making money in the household, and the money that he is making is negligible. He works extremely long hours, and “he was being paid only $20 a week. (Henry 2).”
When examining the other side of the relationship, Della loves Jim unconditionally and sacrifices her everyday life to make him happy. Della is an energetic woman who spends every waking hour trying to ensure that Jim is happy. Della, as one might have guessed, is also very poor, as her only source of income is through Jim. Through Jim’s income, she had saved every penny and, in the end, had saved one dollar and eighty-seven cents. Della is set on giving Jim the best present possible, as “She had had many happy hours planning something nice for him. Something nearly good enough. Something almost worth the honor of belonging to Jim.(Henry 2)” This quote is a wholesome representation of her unconditional love towards Jim, as she thinks so highly of Jim that she feels no gift would ever be good enough for him. She only wishes to come close, believing he will always deserve more than she gives him. To do this, she came to the realization that she had to sacrifice her most important possession, her hair. To show the elegance and importance of Della’s hair, O. Henry uses the simile, “beautiful hair fell about her, shining like a falling stream of brown water (Henry 3).” The language O. Henry uses evokes a sense of nature within the reader. Someone would be stunned to see a beautiful waterfall, just as Jim was stunned to see Della when he first saw her with her hair cut off. It is also meant to exemplify the beauty of her hair, as the movement of a waterfall and her hair are both elegant and beautiful. She loves Jim so much that she only thinks about what Jim will feel once she sees him without her hair, as she says, “’ Please God, make him think I’m still pretty (Henry 4).’” When Jim gifts her the combs, her desire to please Jim is evident, as she immediately reasons with him, claiming her hair grows very fast.
While O. Henry uses this couple to depict the recurring theme of love throughout the story, O. Henry also uses the Magi, also known as the three wise men. According to the Bible, the Magi were three kings who traveled far to deliver gifts to Jesus. At the end of the story, O. Henry mentions them briefly, saying, “Everywhere they are the wise ones. They are the magi (Henry 6).” So why are the Magi so wise? The legend goes that they were known as the wise ones as they wouldn’t worship Jesus empty-handed. In the story, both Jim and Della do not want to leave each other without something of meaning, and through sacrifice for each other, the couple is truly the wisest of gift-givers, as their only intention is to make each other happy.
When examining the ending, one initially thinks it is a bad one, as both Jim and Della gave up an item of significance for each other, and due to this, both of each other’s presents become irrelevant. In an alternate reality, it could be a bad ending. This story would have a different meaning depending on how Jim and Della reacted to the situation. If this ended with them disappointed or angry that their new presents were useless, it would show their true priorities to temporary materialistic things instead of each other. Instead, they were overjoyed with their gifts, not because of the actual items they received but the sacrifice they both made to give them.
O. Henry successfully depicts love throughout the story through the biblical reference to the Magi and by using Jim and Della as a couple who sacrifice for each other constantly throughout the short story. People may argue that this short story is not about true love but about Dela’s true nature of selfishness. One may say that her tears when she saw Jim’s present were due to her realization that her hair was gone, not out of gratefulness to Jim. There may be some truth to this, but overall, Della shows such a commitment to Jim that it would be laughable to say she is selfish. This story was written in 1905, during the industrial age boom, when materialistic goods were at an all-time high in popularity. O. Henry seems to be rejecting this concept, as he believes sacrificial love is much more important than fleeting physical items. Although both characters lost very prized possessions, which seemed to be in vain, how they reacted to the loss made them extremely wise as gift-givers, as sacrificial love replaced those lost items.
Works Cited:
Henry, O. “The Gift of the Magi.” American English, https://americanenglish.state.gov/files/ae/resource_files/1-the_gift_of_the_magi_0.pdf. Originally published in The New York Sunday World, 1905.
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