First of all, Maggie's gift is very good.
1, Della's hair splashed around her, rippling like a brown waterfall. Her hair is knee-length, just like her robe.
She put on her old brown coat and hat. There are still crystal tears in her eyes. As soon as her skirt came out, she floated out of the door and ran downstairs into the street.
The housewife of this family is gradually retreating from the first stage to the second stage. We might as well take time to see this family. A furnished apartment costs eight yuan a week. Although it can't be said that it is absolutely indescribable, it is not far from the slums.
Della did this, but her spiritual feelings came back to life. Life is crying, sniffling and laughing, especially sniffling.
Jim hasn't seen his beautiful present yet. She eagerly held out her palm to him. Unconsciously precious metals seemed to flash her joy and enthusiasm.
6. His eyes were fixed on Della. Della's expression made her incomprehensible and creepy. This is neither anger nor surprise, nor dissatisfaction or disgust. This is not any expression she expected at all. He just stared at della with this expression.
Suddenly, she turned from the window and stood in front of the mirror on the wall. Her eyes were crystal clear, but her face lost its luster in twenty seconds. She quickly messed up her hair and let it spread completely.
8. Oh, the next two hours seem to fly happily with wings. Please ignore this fictional metaphor. In order to buy Jim a present, she is going shopping thoroughly.
9. She put on her old brown coat and hat. There are still crystal tears in her eyes. As soon as her skirt came out, she floated out of the door and ran downstairs into the street.
10, the housewife of this family gradually retreated from the first stage to the second stage. We might as well take time to see this family. A furnished apartment costs eight yuan a week. Although it can't be said that it is absolutely indescribable, it is not far from the slums.
1 1. Let's talk about two things that James Dilinhan Young and his wife are particularly proud of. One is the gold watch handed down by Jim for three generations, and the other is Della's hair. If the Queen of Sheba lives in an apartment opposite the patio, one day Della will hang her hair outside the window to dry, which will dwarf the Queen's jewelry and gifts. If King Solomon became a janitor and piled all his wealth in the basement, Jim would take out his gold watch every time he passed by and let King Solomon blow his beard and stare with envy.
Second, expand reading: appreciate the' Maggie's Gift'
Maggie is three wise men who came to give gifts when the son Jesus was born. They started the custom of giving presents at Christmas. In the eyes of westerners, Christmas gifts are the most precious, so they also hope to get the most valuable "Maggie's gift". O'Henry, a famous American writer, tells a "story without twists and turns" with humorous and slightly sad artistic language in the novel The Gift of the Magi. Novels with the theme of "Giving Gifts to Christmas Eve" are not uncommon in western literary circles, and there are also many excellent works. O'Henry's The Gift of the Maggie is a masterpiece of this kind of theme, which is really thought-provoking.
First of all, from the content. The whole article focuses on giving Christmas presents, and it is about a poor and loving couple in America. In order to save every penny, the housewife of this family had to "stubbornly deduct one or two at a time from the grocery store, vegetable vendor and butcher" However, by Christmas Eve, the whole family had only 1 US$ 87 cents left. Screenwriters don't have to spend too much space writing about family difficulties and embarrassment, just use "one yuan and eighty-seven cents" to lead out the whole article. Only in this way, Della, a housewife who loves her husband deeply, counted the money three times and cried sadly because she couldn't buy a satisfactory "gift from Maggie" for her husband. O Henry is best at sketching an atmosphere with seemingly plain words, so that readers can indulge in it, appreciate and think about the fate of characters. One yuan and eighty-seven cents is a melancholy and desolate atmosphere constructed for this "no twists and turns, not surprising story", which runs through the whole text, and even brings the pain exposed by this atmosphere when writing about the instant surprise and joy of the couple when they see the gift. Life is made up of sobs, sniffles and smiles, and sniffles account for most of them. This sentence seems to reflect O'Henry's deep thinking about the American reality at that time. The writer writes about the sufferings of a poor couple, and also leads the reader's interest to a noble realm by describing the characters' ideological character and story plot, enlightening and edifying people with beauty. This is the real value of the novel The Gift of Maggie.
Della reluctantly sold her beautiful hair in order to match her husband's beloved gold watch with a delicate bracelet. That "beautiful hair hangs freely, like a small brown waterfall, rushing and shining", and her husband Jim likes his wife's beautiful brown hair very much. He knew that his beloved wife had been longing for a tortoise shell comb displayed in the window of a Broadway shop for a long time to dress her hair. In order to give his wife a tortoise shell hair comb as a valuable "Maggie gift" on Christmas Eve, Jim also reluctantly sold three generations of gold watches. Della's hairdressing and Jim's gold watch are the only precious possessions that this poor family can be proud of. In order to show their deep love for their lover, they lost these two most precious possessions on Christmas Eve, and got a watch chain without a gold watch and a hairbrush without hairdressing. Instantaneous joy paid a high price, followed by deep pain. After thinking deeply about real life, O'Henry carefully chose the main plot of this story, which made this easily stereotyped theme glow with strange and moving brilliance. Gold watches and hair salons are a great asset to a family whose weekly income is only 20 yuan. The bitter feeling brought by this regret makes every kind reader shudder. This realistic contradiction (love and wealth), which embodies social reality but cannot be solved, is multiplied by the writer's in-depth writing, which can arouse readers' pity and sympathy and guide readers to think at a deeper level. O'Henry's short stories never win with bizarre plots. It often takes only one shot to reveal the complicated social life, but the unique artistic effect of emotional people that he deliberately pursues can shock the readers' hearts through "no twists and turns, no surprises". Della and Jim "unwisely sacrificed the family's most precious things for each other" for a temporary emotional impulse, and the writer called them "two stupid children living in the same apartment". In that society where money is everything, their gift can't be regarded as the "gift of Maggie" of wisdom. However, they lost their wealth, but deepened the most precious and sincere love in the world. In the contradiction between love and wealth, they sacrificed the latter for the former. Therefore, the writer left a meaningful sentence at the end of the novel: "The last sentence is still for the average smart person at present. Of all the people who give gifts, they are the cleverest ... they are Maggie. "
The novel does not preach to reveal the social reality, but takes the development and change of the characters' emotional ups and downs as the context to inspire readers to touch and feel the tragic ideological character of the characters. In that society where money can buy and sell love and psychological and emotional distortion, the sincere and deep love between Della and his wife is full of the writer's idealism. O'Henry doesn't write the evil that money is the foundation of love in this society, but writes the poetry in this gloomy lens and praises the cleverness of the Della couple, which is by no means the handwriting of ordinary people. Therefore, what works give people is not depression and gloom, but the pursuit and persistence of beauty, thus leading readers to a noble realm.
Generally speaking, short stories, because of their short space, require writers to be "less" than "more promises", so they must be concise in pen and ink, and only grasp one side or two sides to outline the charm of the characters. To some extent, it is not necessarily less difficult than novellas. O Henry's short stories often portray characters and spread plots with his unique sentimental style and humorous and brisk style, which makes the images in his works full of three-dimensional sense and gives people endless aftertaste. Maggie's gift is a masterpiece of this artistic feature. Carefully tailored ideas, conversational language and slightly melancholy emotions make this short story reveal rich connotations in continuous emotions and stimulate readers to think about the value of love and money. The writer carefully wrote about Della's anxiety that she had no money to buy a gift for her husband, wrote about Della's hairdressing, and even wrote about the whole process of Della selling her hair and buying a watch chain in the street, but she carefully avoided Jim's selling gold watches and buying combs. The author can describe in detail a series of explanations that Della was worried that losing her hairdressing would hurt Jim's love after Jim came home, but she suddenly stopped the whole article after Jim sold his gold watch. Sometimes nuanced, sometimes a few strokes, readers can still feel the writer's implication from those places where there are no words. This technique, which is based on truth and falsehood and uses hints and sketches at the same time, is unique among the gifts of the Magi.