Gift Of The Magi Irony

Irony in “The Gift of the Magi” In The Gift of the Magi, O Henry uses irony to place special emphasis on love and sacrifice. O Henry is known for his use of irony in his short stories. Irony is defined as: “the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of its literal meaning” (dictionary.com). In The Gift of the Magi, O Henry uses verbal, situational and dramatic irony to tell his story. The most obvious and prominent type of irony used in The Gift of the Magi was situational irony. In other words, it is; When you expect one thing to happen but something entirely different and unexpected happens. In The Gift of the Magi, Della cuts and sells her hair to buy a chain for Jim’s watch. At the same time, Jim sells his watch to buy Della hair combs. Both Della and Jim sold their most prized possessions
It is when the readers understands what’s going on before those in the story does. There were a few examples of dramatic irony in The Gift of the Magi. One example that was given could have been used as either situational or dramatic irony, but I considered it more dramatic because of the heightened emotion. Della let out “ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! A quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails” (O Henry 275). She was so excited about getting the hair combs that she had longed for, that she forgot that she cut her hair. Once realizing her hair was short, and she had no use for the combs, she became overwhelmed. Lastly, the most apparent situation in the story took place as the reader knew that Jim had sold his watch to buy Della hair combs. All of these tie into the fact that in the era in which this story was taking place women’s beauty was defined by their hair, face and overall look. As important as beauty was in that time period, even more important were family heirlooms that were kept and passed on through the