The Deep Love of Della and Jim

How is the deep love of Della and Jim?
In the short story “The gift of Magi”, O.Henry portrays a beautiful love of Jim and Della. The deep love of this very poor and young couple leaves nice impression in readers’ mind. That is a true love of deep understanding and great sacrifice.
The first outstanding quality of their love is the care for each other and the mutual understanding. Obviously, if Della did not care about the very detailed expression of Jim, she would not realize that “grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on the account of the old leather strap that he used in place of a chain”. As for Jim, he knew clearly that his wife had worshiped a set of tortoise combs for a long time, but she just dared to look it through the window and “without the least hope of possession”. This young couple was aware that the Christmas was coming near, so they both wanted to give the other a meaningful present in order to show their uncountable love. In fact, they shared the same thoughts, even same action. In spite of the very hard life, the only dominating in their mind is to make the other happy, just like someone ever said “love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own”. After months of saving, Della had one dollar eighty seven cents and she spent hours asking herself what she could do with such a mall amount of money. Finally, she founder herself a solution that was to sell her only precious possession - her hair to present Jim a platinum chain, which she thought to be made to be Jim’s. And Jim also shared the same decision; he would sell his gold watch that had ever belonged to his father and grandfather to buy his Della a set of combs. It is clear that their love with understanding and caring lighted up the grey Christmas.
Above all, Della and Jim’s love is the great sacrifice. None of them were ever reluctant to sell their only treasure in order to please each other. Della’ hair was not just her pride but it was the pride of the whole Dillingham family, for her, it was like a garment rather than a hair. Yet before and after she had her hair cut, Jim is all her concern, she hardly spent a minute thinking about herself. At first she felt as if everything had been grey when not having enough money to buy Jim a Christmas present. And then she was like a little bird in haste to ransack all stores for a meaningful gift, and started to worry about Jim’s reaction to her new hair when coming home. As a result, in just several hours Della experienced every state of sentiment, from completely hopeless to extremely happy. In comparison with Della’s, Jim’s love was somewhat quieter. Perhaps, while Della “ransacking the stores for Jim’s present, he was at somewhere in the city to sell his gold watch- the only possession that he treasured in his life. Indeed his need for a new overcoat and gloves might be more pressing but because of love, he sacrificed his own need to fulfill Della’s desire. Thus their action showed us a willingness to sacrifice and offer their partner the best gift possible.
At the end of the story, their Christmas present turned out to be very useless, but even if they were useless, they were the wisest gifts of all. The gifts they gave the other was not the platinum chain or a set of tortoise combs, it was the unselfish love – a love of understanding and sacrifice.