Analysis

English • Grade 10

9.4. Analyzing a Text Using the Marxist Approach

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Read the text and answer the questions that follow.

The Gift of the Magi

By O. Henry

ONE dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies.
Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the grocer and the vegetable man
and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned with the silent imputation of parsimony that
such close dealing implied. Three times, Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven
cents. And the next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little couch and howl. So
Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles,
and smiles, with sniffles predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first stage to the
second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per week. It did not exactly
beggar description, but it certainly had that word on the lookout for the mendicancy
squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go, and an electric
button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring. Also, appertaining thereunto was
a card bearing the name “Mr. James Dillingham Young.”

The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of prosperity
when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the income was shrunk to

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$20, though, they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and unassuming
D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and reached his flat above,
he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs. James Dillingham Young, already
introduced to you as Della. Which is all very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag. She stood by
the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard.
Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a
present. She had been saving every penny she could for months, with this result.
Twenty dollars a week doesn’t go far. Expenses had been greater than she had
calculated. They always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy
hour, she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine and rare and
sterling—something just a little bit near to being worthy of the honor of being owned
by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have seen a
pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may, by observing his
reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, obtain a fairly accurate conception
of his looks. Della, being slender, had mastered the art.

Suddenly, she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes were
shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty seconds. Rapidly, she
pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which they both
took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been his father’s and his
grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair. Had the queen of Sheba lived in the flat
across the airshaft, Della would have let her hair hang out the window some day to dry
just to depreciate Her Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor,
with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch
every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

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So now, Della’s beautiful hair fell about her rippling and shining like a cascade of brown
waters. It reached below her knee and made itself almost a garment for her. And then,
she did it up again nervously and quickly. Once, she faltered for a minute and stood
still while a tear or two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of skirts and
with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered out the door and down the stairs
to the street.

Where she stopped the sign read: “Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All Kinds.” One flight
up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame, large, too white, chilly, hardly
looked the “Sofronie.”

“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.

“I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yer hat off and let’s have a sight at the looks of it.”

Down rippled the brown cascade.

“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand.

“Give it to me quick,” said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed metaphor. She
was ransacking the stores for Jim’s present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else. There was no
other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all of them inside out. It was a
platinum fob chain simple and chaste in design, properly proclaiming its value by
substance alone and not by meretricious ornamentation—as all good things should do.

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It was even worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it, she knew that it must be Jim’s.
It was like him. Quietness and value—the description applied to both. Twenty-one
dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home with the 87 cents. With that
chain on his watch, Jim might be properly anxious about the time in any company.
Grand as the watch was, he sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old
leather strap that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home, her intoxication gave way a little to prudence and reason.
She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went to work repairing the
ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is always a tremendous task, dear
friends—a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes, her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls that made her
look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at her reflection in the mirror
long, carefully, and critically.

“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second look at me, he’ll
say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what could I do—oh! what could I do with
a dollar and eighty-seven cents?”

At 7 o’clock, the coffee was made, and the frying-pan was on the back of the stove hot
and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on the corner of
the table near the door that he always entered. Then, she heard his step on the stair
away down on the first flight, and she turned white for just a moment. She had a habit
of saying a little silent prayer about the simplest everyday things, and now she
whispered: “Please God, make him think I am still pretty.”

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very serious.
Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two—and to be burdened with a family! He needed a

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new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of quail. His eyes
were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in them that she could not read,
and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any
of the sentiments that she had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with
that peculiar expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut off and sold
because I couldn’t have lived through Christmas without giving you a present. It’ll grow
out again—you won’t mind, will you? I just had to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say
‘Merry Christmas!’ Jim, and let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice—what a
beautiful, nice gift I’ve got for you.”

“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim, laboriously, as if he had not arrived at that patent
fact yet even after the hardest mental labor.

“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well, anyhow? I’m me
without my hair, ain’t I?”

Jim looked about the room curiously.

“You say your hair is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you—sold and gone, too. It’s
Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you. Maybe the hairs of my head
were numbered,” she went on with sudden serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever
count my love for you. Shall I put the chops on, Jim?”

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Out of his trance, Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For ten seconds,
let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential object in the other direction.
Eight dollars a week or a million a year—what is the difference? A mathematician or a
wit would give you the wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not
among them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s anything in the
way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make me like my girl any less. But
if you’ll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first.”

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of
joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating
the immediate employment of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs—the set of combs, side and back, that Della had worshipped
long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoiseshell, with jeweled
rims—just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive
combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned over them without the
least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have
adorned the coveted adornments were gone.

But, she hugged them to her bosom, and at length, she was able to look up with dim
eyes and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”

And then, Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly upon her
open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and
ardent spirit.

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“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a
hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.”

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under the back
of his head and smiled.

“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.”

The magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men—who brought gifts to
the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise,
their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case
of duplication. And here, I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two
foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest
treasures of their house. But in the last word to the wise of these days, let it be said
that of all who give gifts, these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts,
such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are the wisest. They are the magi.

Answer the following questions comprehensively. Responses must be at least

one (1) paragraph long (5-7 sentences). The rubric below will be used to grade each
response.

1. What social class could the young couple belong in? How is this shown in the story?
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2. What could the two things the couple treasures the most in their household say
about them? How is this reflected in real life?
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3. Despite the couple’s blunder, what realization is reached at the end that still gives the
story a happy ending?
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4. What commentary could this story provide about today’s society?

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5. Research about the life of O. Henry. How might the life he lived and the society he
lived in have affected his writing?
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Table 9.4.1. Output-based Rubric for Evaluation

Criteria Does Not Meet Nearly Meets Meets Exceeds Score

Expectations Expectations Expectations Expectations
1 2 3 4

Content (50%) The answer lacks The answer is The answer is The answer is
Clear answer on focus on the partially focused on the focused on the
the question and
presence of question and focused on the question and question and
relevant does not have question and substantiated well-substanti
supporting
relevant there are some with relevant ated with
details
supporting supporting supporting highly relevant
details. details that are details. supporting
irrelevant. details.

Organization The ideas lack The ideas are The ideas are The ideas are
(30%) organization and somewhat sufficiently exceptionally
Clarity and

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coherence of coherence. The organized, organized, well

ideas
structure of the coherently mostly organized,
answer is hard to developed and coherently coherently
follow. easy to follow. developed and developed and
easy to follow. easy to follow.

Language Use There are four or There are two to There is one There are no
(20%) more language three language language error. language
Accuracy of
spelling,
errors. errors. errors.
grammar,
punctuation, and
word choice

Total Score =

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