Love And Pride In O. Henry's The Gift Of The Magi

In the story “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry the two main characters are a husband and wife who give up their most precious possessions to be able to afford gifts for each other on Christmas Eve. The story follows the wife Della throughout the day as she tries to find a way to get money so she can buy her husband Jim a Christmas gift. Throughout the story there are a lot of themes that are shown through Della and Jim’s actions. The three most important themes found in this story are sacrifice, love and pride. Sacrifice, love and pride are all shown by Jim and Della throughout the story as they both try to find a way to get money for each other’s gift and as they sell their prized possession.

The most important theme in the story is
In the first paragraph of the story it states that Della only had one dollar and eighty-seven cents that she had gotten by begging the vegetable man and the butcher for money. Della had to put her pride aside and beg others for money so that she could buy Jim a present. By going and begging for money she showed that she didn’t care what other people thought about her begging or her financial situation at the time, she only cared about getting Jim’s present. But, that’s not the only time in the story when Della has to put her pride aside to get Jim’s gift. When Della sells her hair to Madame Sofronie she has to put her pride aside and get her beautiful hair cut for money for Jim’s gift. Jim, on the other hand put his pride aside and sold his watch that was a very meaningful item to him just so he could get money for Della’s comb set. Both characters put their pride aside to make the other happy, no matter how much they probably thought about that possession after they sold it, what mattered most was buying a gift for the other. Love, another important theme is also shown a lot in the story by Jim and