The Gift of the Magi

Chapter-by-chapter summary

Spoiler warning: this section covers the whole plot, including the ending.

Scene 1: One dollar and eighty-seven cents

The story opens on the day before Christmas in a small furnished flat in New York. Della has counted her savings more than once. She has one dollar and eighty-seven cents, and sixty of those cents are in pennies, saved coin by coin through careful budgeting. Her husband Jim’s pay has dropped from thirty dollars a week to twenty, and the rent is eight dollars a week. Della wants to buy him a proper present, but she has almost nothing to spend. This scene matters because the small sum sets the stakes, so every later sacrifice is measured against real need.

Scene 2: Selling the hair

Della looks at her reflection and sees her long brown hair, which the narrator calls beautiful. She decides to sell it. The buyer is Madame Sofronie, who runs a hair-goods shop. The narrator describes her as large and chilly, and she pays Della twenty dollars. With that money Della buys a platinum fob chain, simple and chaste in design, meant for Jim’s gold watch. This scene matters because Della gives up the hair the story has just described so lovingly, and the reader feels the weight of that choice before Jim appears.

Scene 3: Jim comes home

That evening Jim comes home and looks around the room. He notices that Della’s hair is short, and she tells him that she has cut it off and sold it. Jim has a present for her too, but what he has done is not yet revealed to the reader. Before the gift appears, the narrator pauses with a puzzling remark about the Magi’s gifts and promises to explain it later. This scene matters because a cheerful plan suddenly turns into a moment of real tension, and the reader senses that the couple has kept something from each other.

Scene 4: The exchange

Jim’s present is a set of combs made of pure tortoise shell, with jewelled rims, the kind Della had long admired in a shop window. Jim had sold his gold watch, the one that belonged to his father and his grandfather, to pay for them. Della had sold her hair to buy the chain. Each gift now lacks the thing it was meant to go with: the combs were meant for hair that is gone, and the chain was meant for a watch that is gone. This scene matters because both of them gave up what they treasured, and the meaning of the title comes into focus.

Scene 5: The wise men

In the closing lines, the narrator sets the couple beside the Magi, the wise men who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. The narrator credits those wise men with inventing the art of giving Christmas presents. The narrator then calls Della and Jim two foolish children who gave up the greatest treasures of their house for each other, yet concludes that of all who give gifts, these two were the wisest. This scene matters because it explains the title and tells the reader how to judge the gifts: by what the givers gave up, not by what the gifts could buy.

Characters

• Della: The young wife at the centre of the story. She counts every coin and is determined to find a Christmas present for Jim, however little money they have. Her choice to sell her hair shows how far she will go for him.
• Jim: Della’s husband. His pay has dropped, but he treasures a gold watch that came down to him from his father and grandfather. He also makes a sacrifice for Della, which the reader learns about only later in the story.
• Madame Sofronie: The proprietor of a hair-goods shop. Madame Sofronie is a large, chilly woman who buys Della’s hair for twenty dollars. She appears in one brief scene, but without this sale Della could not buy the chain, so she drives the plot forward.
• The Magi: The wise men of the Christmas story who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. They are not people in the plot, but the narrator uses them as a comparison in the closing lines, and the title refers to them.
• The narrator: The voice that tells the story from outside, describing the flat, the coins and the couple’s choices. The narrator sometimes steps in with asides to the reader, and closes by setting Della and Jim beside the Magi. The narrator is a voice rather than a character, but readers should notice it.

Writing about this book

A strong book report on this story does more than retell the plot. Begin with the question the story asks: what makes a gift valuable? Then choose one scene that changed your view, such as the moment Della decides to sell her hair, and explain why it matters to the story. The closing comparison to the Magi is the author’s own frame, so decide for yourself whether you agree with it and say why.

These questions can help you plan the essay:

• Why does the narrator describe the flat, the coins and the rent in such detail before the couple does anything?
• Would you give up something you value for someone you love? What would you choose?
• How does the ending change the way you read the first scene?
• Does the story suggest that poverty limits love, or that it can sharpen it?

Write in your own words and support each point with a detail from the story. Avoid copying summaries or long passages from other sources, because a short personal argument is stronger than a retelling.