Essay on the Gift of the Magi

The story The gift of the Magi tells the story about a young married couple who are deeply in love and want to get each other a gift for Christmas. The problem they share is that they are incredibly poor and acquiring a gift that is worthy of their spouse is nearly impossible. Della had only saved one dollar and eighty-seven cents in order to buy her husband a gift, knowing that that amount wasn’t enough; she decided to sell her long luscious hair. Jim Della’s husband, decided to sell his gold watch, which was a family heirloom. Unbeknownst to each other, they make the ultimate sacrifice and each sells their most precious possession in exchange for an amount of money that would help them get a gift that would be meaningful to their loved one. Della got Jim a chain for his gold watch. Jim got Della a tortoise colored jeweled incrusted set of combs to adorn her hair. At the end of the story they each realize that their gift turned out to be useless, but were left with the fulfillment that the other had sacrificed so much to show how much love, appreciation and compassion they have for each other.

We are taught in a very direct way the morals of love, sacrifice, compassion and how little if not at all, money matters when one wants to make a gift to a person we love. What I appreciated from the story was that Della did not mind at all losing her hair because with the money she received in exchange for it, she was going to be able to buy her loving husband a gift that would make him happy. I think Della reacted selflessly and so did her husband Jim. Their reaction is one that deserves a lot of respect because many of us who live in a modern era, seem to think that everything is easily obtained and not far from our reach. We think we deserve everything and we are selfishly enough to not think twice to turn these material things in, in exchange to make another person happy. In doing so we pay less importance