Irony of Life

Love, care and sacrifice are indispensible to most of the relationships of life; especially in marriage, these factors become more important. Each of the couple has to know for whom and for which they live and work. In “The Gift of the Magi”, O.Henry was really successful in describing the love, care and sacrifice that Della and Jim give each other. The story would not become famous without its “surprising ending”, the accident and coincidence. Readers are attracted to the moving love story between Jim and Della, which is transfigured by O.Henry’s unrivalled flowery language, academic and belles-letters style, and his superb ironical tone. At the end of the story, readers will only be able to say “How ironical their life is!” “The irony of life” in “The Gift of the Magi” is presented through a story of love and sacrifice between a young couple, Jim and Della, who are poor materially but not poor spiritually. They always live happily in a poor living condition. Their happiness is described simply by the call “Jim” and the great hug of the wife, Della, for her husband, Jim whenever he came home. Della always feels happy in “the look-out for the mendicancy squad” because she loves Jim, who is living there. And also, she is happy in thought of the nice and precious present for Jim though she has to “save every penny by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher”. However, the fate is ironical; God wants to provoke her. “Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only one dollar and eighty-seven cents to buy Jim a present”. What could she do with this small amount of money? Perhaps the answer is very clear: “There was clearly nothing left to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl”. She howls. She cries painfully. If only they were not so much poor, if only Jim’s salary was more than twenty dollars per week, if only she had more money then, if only… By putting “three times” at the beginning of the sentence “Three times Della counts