The Gift Of The Magi

A detailed Summary of The Gift Of The Magi

In the story "The Gift Of The Magi" by O. Henry, I think that the author mainly used three of the seven elements. The three elements that I thought he, O. Henry, put to great use in this short story were plot, theme, and tone. The other four elements were used as well, but were weak.

When talking about the author and how he worked the plot with the story, the plot did in fact seem contrived. The plot was very manageable and held the interest of the reader. This is because of certain situations in the story, where two people sold their prized possessions to give someone whom they cared for a gift, but then found out in the end that it was for nothing, because they had both bought something useful for one another's prized possession. This particular situation did not rely on coincidence nor chance. The reason for this is because of these quotes

mentioned in the story, " Dell" said he, "let's put our Christmas presents away and keep 'em a while. They're too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on." This quote explains how they fell into the situation that they both bought presents for one another, but buying the presents ended up being pointless.

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The last element, which was the tone the writer used in the story, would be ironic. The tone was not anything near passionate but inclined more towards being ironic. I came to the assumption that it was ironic because it was everything but mocking, cynical, and bemused. In the story itself, the tone towards the characters and the rough situation they were going through was ironic as a reader. The author had j

Some common words found in the essay are:
Magi Henry, short story, Gift Magi, plot theme tone, theme tone, gift magi, towards characters, story plot, plot theme, seven elements,

Approximate Word count = 591
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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The Gift Of The Magi

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