the plot analyze of "the gift of the migi"

the plot analyze of "the gift of the migi"

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1  Background of the choosing the Subject

.....................................................................................                                    “The Gift of the Magi” is a short story, one of several hundred written by O. Henry between 1903 and 1910. It was published in a New York City newspaper in 1905 and in a collection, The Four Million, in 1906. O. Henry  is one of the famous and well known writer or author at that era. Most of his writing is famous of great writing as well. After his release from prison in 1901, he moved to New York, which is the setting for many of his stories. He is the author of over 250 stories and is most famous for his use of surprise or 'twist' endings. Notice the twists and surprises in the endings to "The Last Leaf", "The Green Door", and perhaps his most famous story, "The Gift of the Magi". By those reason, this paper provided to recover the plot of “the gift of the magi”

1.2  Objective and Scope of the Study

The main objective of this analysis is recovering the one of intrinsic points, that is plot, in the short story the gift of the magi by O. Henry . This purpose analysis is to excavate all information that has relation with the plot of story deeply. Then, we will dig out how the author provides his story with his own character plot. That is suspense.

1.3  Statement of the Problem

Based on the previous background of the selecting the short story, the statement of the problem can be concluded as how O.Henry provide the plot in his short story “the gift of the magi”?

    1.4 Theoretical Approach 

Structuralism is a method of analyzing phenomena, as in anthropology, linguistics, psychology, or literature, chiefly characterized by contrasting the elemental structures of the phenomena in a system of binary opposition. Structuralism is an intellectual movement which bases it analysis on the reduction of materials into models referred to as structures. It is fundamental to structuralism that it be understood that these structures are not concrete manifestations of reality; but cognitive models of reality. Lévi-Strauss stresses that all cultures and not only scholars understand the universe around them through such models, and that humankind comprehends his world on the basis of these mental structures (Mark Glazer.1994).

Chapter 2

DISCUSSION

Most good stories start with: the initial situation or expository, conflict, raising action, climax, suspense, falling action, and conclusion. In this story, we can find all of those elements.

2.1 Expository

The story beginning with problem, Della the major character had a problem. She wanted to buy her husband well preset in Christmas day. Unfortunately, her money was not much enough.  Della only has $1.87 to buy a Christmas present, and it's Christmas Eve. She and her husband are poor. Nevertheless, as human being, they also want to celebrate well their Christmas. Della loved her husband much. Then, Della thought more how to get money to buy her husband perfect Christmas present. In fact, she just has her long hair. At that time when long hair was the mascot of the women life. Someone who has long hair is proud of her life. Whether she was herself or her husband.

2.2 Conflict

Della sold her hair. The conflict is supposedly when Della found the solution of her problem. She decides to sell her hair. This is the conflict as the solution of the fist problem. Therefore, we can conclude that the solution of the first problem open the next problem. Because when Della sold her hair. She would lose her mascot which be prouded of herself and her husband. Then, there was a new problem:  would Jim (Della husband) be pleased by Della's action and appreciate her gift, or would he be angry with her for cutting off the hair he loved so much?

2.3 Raising Action

Jim was shocked with Della appearance with no long hair. When jim come back from his job, he seemed not well. He stared Della like wanted to ask where is your hair, honey? Yet, he did not look like he is angry. Yeah, because he also loved his wife much. Directly, Della gave the explanation what had happened with her hair. She told that she sold her hair to buy something special for her lovely husband. She also tried to make the situation calmly by telling that her hair will grow up fast.

2.4 Climax

When Jim give his present to Della. We can know the reason why Jim was so shocked when knowing his hair wife had cut off. The present is comb. Then the sweetest moment was when Jim showed that he was not angry and would assure her that he would love her wife whatever she looked like. May be, most reader will predict that Jim will angry. In other hand that was not. We has known that Jim’s family was poor, so where Jim got the money to buy the expensive comb to his wife? We may be able to guess what happens next. Then this part called as foreshadowing element of the plot.

2.5 Suspense

Then, we are in suspense element which the author famous of this element. It was time to know how Jim reacted to Della’s present. And we also still questioning where Jim got the money? Della gives Jim the watch chain.

2.6 Falling Action

After knowing the Della present. Jim smiled calmly. Then, Della asked the Jim’s watch which the most valuable thing that he had, Jim could give. He sold his watch to buy Della her combs. Therefore, both the presents were useless. Then, no much to do, except eating chop crops.

2.7 Conclusion

In the final paragraph, they keep their present useless. Then, they also think that they were just too nice if just to present. They are the wisest givers of all. It was about sacrifice and true love.

Then, to create the good story we also need suspense to invite the reader enter in the story. So that, the reader will keep reading the story.

Chapter 3

CONCLUSION

                       By those, we know that the good story is when the author can provide the story that can keep the reader reading the story. Then, to make the reader keep reading, we can use suspense or surprise that reader guess is not proved. Then, the author should think the general guessing, so the author can provide the different story.

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 $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.

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: "Mne. 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 practised 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. 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 for saying 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 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?"

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 tortoise shell, with jewelled 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 them 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.

"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 a last word to the wise of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. O all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.