The Gift of the Magi is a Christmas story that happened in a small family of the lower class. Jim, the hero, is a small clerk whose salary is only enough to make ends meet, and Della, the heroine, is a virtuous and kind housewife. Their lives are poor, but Jim and Della both have a very precious treasure. Jim has a gold watch and Della has beautiful waterfall hair. In order to give gifts to each other at Christmas, Jim sold his gold watch and bought a set of pure tortoise shells with jewels on the edge for Della. Della sold her long hair and bought Jim a platinum watch chain. They all gave up their most precious things for each other, and the gifts they got became useless.
Appreciation of The Gift of the Magi The author expresses the pure love between the two protagonists with a simple storyline, which represents the sadness and joy of the lower class in the United States, and also contains the most important aspect of the "beauty of human nature" that the author wants to express: "selfless love".
In The Gift of the Magi, O Henry takes the beautiful love in the poor life of the broad masses of the lower classes as the theme. He made a sharp and bitter satire on the capitalist society where money was paramount at that time, and praised the broad masses of people for their spirit of caring for each other and self-sacrifice in the struggle and their beautiful love of seeing the truth in adversity.
O Henry, the author of The Gift of the Maggie, is an American short story writer and the founder of modern American short stories. His major works include The Gift of the Maggie, The Police and Hymns, The Last Leaf, Twenty Years Later, etc.
O Henry, Chekhov and Mo Bosang are also called the world's three great short story masters. He was once praised by critics as the Laureate Prose Writer in Manhattan and the father of modern American short stories. His works are known as "Encyclopedia of American Life".