Stylistic Analysis of a Short Story The Gift of the Magi by O.

Henry

Muhammet SAYGIN Hacettepe University Department of English Linguistics

General Information about the Author O. Henry (1862-1910) was a prolific American short-story writer, a master of surprise endings, who wrote about the life of ordinary people in New York City. A twist of plot, which turns on an ironic or coincidental circumstance, is typical of O. Henry's stories. William Sydney Porter (O. Henry) was born in Greenboro, North Carolina. His father, Algernon Sidney Porter, was a physician. When William was three, his mother died, and he was raised by his paternal grandmother and aunt. William was an avid reader, but at the age of fifteen he left school, and then worked in a drug store and on a Texas ranch. He moved to Houston, where he had a number of jobs, including that of bank clerk. After moving to Austin, Texas, in 1882, he married. In 1884 he started a humorous weekly The Rolling Stone. When the weekly failed, he joined the Houston Post as a reporter and columnist. In 1897 he was convicted of embezzling money, although there has been much debate over his actual guilt. In 1898 he entered a penitentiary at Columbus, Ohio. While in prison O. Henry started to write short stories to earn money to support his daughter Margaret. His first work, "Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking" (1899), appeared in McClure's Magazine. After doing three years of the five years sentence, Porter emerged from the prison in 1901 and changed his name to O. Henry. O. Henry moved to New York City in 1902 and from December 1903 to January 1906 he wrote a story a week for the New York World, also publishing in other magazines. Henry's first collection, Cabbages And Kings appeared in 1904. The second, The Four Million, was published two years later and included his well-known stories "The Gift of the Magi" and "The Furnished Room". The Trimmed Lamp (1907) included "The Last Leaf". Henry's best known work is perhaps the much anthologized "The Ransom of Red Chief", included in the collection Whirligigs (1910). The Heart Of The West (1907) presented tales of the Texas range. O. Henry published 10 collections and over 600 short stories during his lifetime. O. Henry's last years were shadowed by alcoholism, ill health, and financial problems. He married Sara Lindsay Coleman in 1907, but the marriage was not happy, and they separated a year later. O. Henry died of cirrhosis of the liver on June 5, 1910, in New York. Three more collections, Sixes And Sevens (1911), Rolling Stones (1912) and Waifs And Strays (1917), appeared posthumously.

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A- INTRODUCTION
It is a well-known fact that a literary text is comprehended better if it is studied in parallel with stylistic analysis which emphasizing the intended meanings of the text. In the light of this idea, I will try to analyze a short story of O. Henry which is called as The Gift of the Magi. Before this, I believe that I should give a brief summary of the story.

A1 - Synopsis
Our main characters in the story, Jim and Della, are a husband and wife. They are living in a rented room and a very poor couple. After some necessary outgoings such as rent and groceries, they hardly have any money left. Under these inconvenient conditions Della wants to buy Jim a gold watch chain for his gold watch as a Christmas present, and his watch is the only thing Jim is happy about and proud, but Della has not enough money for that present. She decides to sell her hair to a woman who makes wigs, so she would have enough money. She buys the chain to give to Jim. She goes home and prepares Jim's dinner and waits for him to come home. When Jim comes home, he does look shocked when he sees Della with short hair. She explains to Jim why she sold her hair. Jim tells her not to worry and that nothing can change his love for her. The reason he is shocked to see her without her long hair is that he also wanted to get a nice Christmas present for Della. He gives her the present wrapped in paper and Della unwraps it to see that Jim had bought her a set of beautiful combs for her hair. She had seen them in a shop before, but they were so expensive. Then, she remembers Jim's present. She gives him the gold chain. The chain is beautiful, but when Della asks Jim to put it on his watch, Jim surprises her. He sold the watch to buy her those nice combs. This short story ends with the description part of the Magi who were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger.

A2 - Inference
The author tries to tell us the importance of sacrificing. The characters in the story are considered to be wise and passionate because they had each sacrificed their most valuable possessions for the person they loved. They were like the three wise men -the Magi- who brought presents for Jesus Christ after he was born. And this is why Christians still give presents in Christmas Day.

A3 - Brief Information about the Stylistic Features

Main Characters; Della and Jim (They are both flat characters, what I mean is that there is no differences in their characteristic features through the story.) Characterization; There is a direct characterization so the author has direct comments on main characters and he is telling the features of them directly. Narration Type; Third person narration that is there is an omniscient narration so, the author gives detailed background information about the characters. Author gives a
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panoramic view of the world of the story, looking into many characters and into the broader background. This way, he tells the feelings of every character. Keywords of the Story: Love, devotion, sacrificing, and art of giving... Main Idea of the Story: Sacrificing is one of the most important features of humanity.

A4 - Deep Analysis of the Main Characters

Della: Relational Processes She is one of the main characters in the story. She is the wife of a sincere man called as Jim. She really loves her husband and she proves her love by selling her hairs to buy a Christmas present for her love. Material Processes Her goal is to make her husband happy. Although she lives in a bad condition, the only thing she has is her love and sincere feelings for her husband. This creates a good image on the readers mind. Her most valuable thing is her hair. Mental Processes Her description in the story and her conversations show a clue for us about her sincerity and uprightness. Also, she has some anxiety for her physical features because when she was with short hair, she couldnt imagine the reaction of her husband.

Jim: Relational Processes He is the second character in the story because, He sold his watch to buy present for his wife but, he just sold his gold watch that is it was a material not like a body part like Dellas hair.

Material Processes His goal is to make his wife happy. They share the same aims and that is why they are in real love. His sacrificing shows us relationship and happiness can only be supported by feelings.

Mental Processes His description and conversations may be a clue for us to imply that he has an authority on Della that is his wife couldnt imagine his reaction. But, of course he has real feelings for his wife. With his speech he showed the importance of feelings not things.

B ANALYSIS B1 - Lexical Categories

General: Although the short story Gift of the Magi is heavily laced with details, the choice of the vocabulary is very simple and it leaves a good impression on the readers mind. In this story there are two thousand seventy eight words. Generally, there is a colloquial word usage throughout the story and it leads to the descriptive expressions because of the highly detailed things. Also, there are some idiomatic expressions such as platinum fob , meretricious ornamentation, truant schoolboy etc.. Expressions as given above belong to the everyday language that is the story contains a very simple and natural language usage.

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This short story is about the presents of Christmas Day, but it is surprising that the words present and gift are used for eight times. It means that author is trying to explain underlying meanings not the surface ones. The preferred vocabulary is descriptive to set the scene in front of the eyes of a reader.

Frequency of Common Words

120 100 80 60 40 20 0 113 82 66 46 41 35 33 27 27 25 23 22 the to a she of was in it and her had for Seri 1

Nouns: They are generally concrete but there are of course abstract ones. Concrete nouns have been used to refer their surroundings, characters their living standards and presents. Abstract ones on the other hand, are used for their emotional conditions. One specific example can be given at the time of giving presents, so author clearly exemplifies the mental situations of his characters. Proper names are used frequently such as Jim, Della, Majesty, Mr. James Dillingham Young, queen of Sheba, Christmas, Babe, Magi, King Solomon. These usages express the importance of details and so that most of them are not collective nouns, author has directs the readers attention to these underlying meanings thanks to the usages... Specifically, there is a close connection between these proper names and the main characters of the story.

Frequency of Common Words

21 21 20 18 18 16 16 15

14 Seri 1

Jim

at

on Della His

He

You

Hair

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Adjectives: Adjectives are frequently used, because story is reflecting both the emotional sides of the characters and their physical conditions. This way, adjectives are needed so much that author chooses to explain most of the things with the adjectives. These adjectives are generally used for the physical conditions. One important thing is that adjectives describing except for the main characters are generally used in a negative way such as: brown waters brown hat brilliant sparkle, large, too white, chilly... But, when author is using adjectives for his characters Della and Jim, the mood of adjectives is changing such as, beautiful hair, tiny curls, white fingers, nice etcAlso, if I categorize these adjectives, I can say that they are mostly used for the visual and physical descriptions. Verbs: Verbs carry an important part of the meaning that is this story involves many events and t express them dynamic verbs are used dominantly. But, stative verbs are also preferred because the mood of the main characters is identified with the help of stative verbs. Most of the verbs refer physical acts however as I have mentioned above psychological movements are also expressed in a detailed way. Furthermore auxiliaries are used dominantly. Verbs are also used transitively in most of the sentences but again I must say that there is a proportion in all of these usages that is to say, author tries to give whatever he has to make a qualified story for his readers. Some of transitive verbs can be shown as: Della doubled the fob chain in her hand she heard his step Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present I hunted all over town I sold the watch Adverbs: Adverbs are frequently used. I believe that their usage also make the story colourful because to express the quality of actions which identified with the verbs, we need adverb usage. In this short story these adverbs are used frequently: Gradually, exactly, certainly, seriously, greatly, fairly, rapidly, brilliantly, nervously, quickly, surely, properly, carefully, critically, fixedly, laboriously, curiously. They generally perform the semantic function of manner and time. In story we as readers wait for description of the moods and the author as we expected identifies the situation with mostly these manner adverbs. This way, readers feel secure and relaxed while reading the whole story. Also, in the story conjuncts such as and, so, therefore are used frequently. For example and is used for the sixteen times in the story, also the conjunction so used for two times but therefore is not used in this story.

B-2 Grammatical Categories

Sentence Types: The author uses not only declarative sentences and but also questions, imperatives and exclamations and it gives an idea that this short story is rich in terms of its syntactic features. Also, this can be considered as a clue of varieties in the text type.

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Sentence Complexity: There are both complex and simple sentences as given below; (these sentences are in the first paragraph of the story) - That was all - 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. Although these sentence types dont vary often, author preferred using different sentence structures that is, sometimes there are sentences involving two or three words, also, sometimes there are more than twenty words in sentences. Clause types: There are many clause types in the story such as; -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. -The magi, as you know, were wise men--wonderfully wise men--who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger. . Which instigates the moral reflection that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating -I had my hair cut off and sold because I couldn't have lived through Christmas without giving you a present -if you'll unwrap that package you may see why you had me going a while at first." -"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 Author uses a variety of types including adverb clauses, adjective clauses and noun clauses. Clause Structure: There is a significant usage of that clauses in the story, it is often used, on the other hand clauses which made with the item of who is used only four times and the situation for the usage of which occurs for eight times.that is noun clauses are dominant in this story. Author generally avoids of using unusual structures in the sentences types. Word classes: The usage of nouns, adjectives and also the adverbs are dominant. As it is thought, author tries to define nouns with adjectives, and define the verbs with adverbs as a result, he reaches a well-prepared , easy to read story for his readers. Details in descriptions may be considered as a result of these major word class usage, however the author does not avoid using minor ones such as prepositions and conjunctions. These are also often used. If we symbolize these processes we can reach such a conclusion:

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2500 2000 1500 1000 Seri 1 500 0 Number of Sentences Number of Words 137 S1 2087

There are 2087 words in the story, also there are 137 sentences. Therefore, the average usage of words in sentences is:15.2. That is, we as readers might expect that an average sentence consist of fifteen words but naturally there are different sentence structures having different number of elements.

C - Figures of Speech
Word usage in the climax of the story have an importance for us as analyzers. In the climax of the story which can be considered as the moment of main characters giving present to each other. At that time the conversation occurs as: "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 climax of this story in at the end of the story. And, there is a change of mood in this part. Author makes readers impatient with the result and word choice makes us sad. Also, we can say that thanks to the few words, readers are thought to learn meaning of sacrificing. This situation is creating a special moment for the reader.

C1 - Important Quotations:
These quotations involve the real meaning of the story that is with just reading and understanding these part of speeches one can have an idea about the story itself. And now I think we should have our dinner.
Jim: He doesn't want either of them to worry or think too much about their new gifts and lost possessions. He just wants them to enjoy Christmas together.

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 Will you buy my hair? Della: She is willing to sacrifice her beautiful hair to be able to buy a nice gift for her husband. I sold the watch to get the money to buy the combs. Jim: He is willing to sell his most prized possession, his watch, to buy Della a nice gift. You've cut off your hair? Jim: He realizes that Della will not need the combs he bought her for a while. Isn't it perfect, Jim? Della: She really wants to make Jim happy. What could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents? Della: She doesn't have very much money and she is worried that she can't buy a nice present for Jim. Don't you like me now? Della: She is worried that Jim will not like her with short hair. You won't care, will you? Della: She is worried that Jim will not like her with short hair.

C2 - Themes of the Story:

These can be considered as the themes of the story The Gift of the Magi;
Beauty Sacrificing Family Wisdom Art of Giving Relationship Identity Real Happiness Love

Beauty: One of the main characters of the story, Della, is worried about that Jim won't think she is beautiful with short hair, but Jim loves her in every situation. It shows us that If you really love somebody, they are beautiful no matter how they look. Family Jim and Della are husband and wife and they love each other. Although they are having inappropriate conditions, their love still has a strong effect on them. Giving: Della and Jim both feel that it is important to give nice gifts to each other to express their love. It shows the importance of giving rather than receiving. Identity: Della learns that Jim loves her for just for being herself, not because of her hair or the Christmas present she buys him. It can be a clue of real life in todays world. Love Because Jim and Della love each other, there is really no need to prove their love by buying gifts for each other. Although gifts make happy us, we dont really need them to express our feelings because the love is the greatest gift that we can give.

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Sacrifice: We learn from the story that our main characters sacrifice their most valuable things for their real feelings. Wisdom: Main Characters Jim and Della can easily sacrifice their important things and thi is why they are in love and wise. Relationship: One of the main themes of the story is that the real relationships can only be made by having sincere feelings not with expensive presents-gifts. Real Happiness: Real things are created by real ideas and feelings and if we want to reach happiness we must have sincere feelings for everyone.

C3 - Internal Deviation:
At the end of the story author explains his opinions about his main characters Jim and Della with this quotation: 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 Although there is a third person narration in the story, he breaks this rule at the end with saying his ideas. Here, he is trying to provide support and he uses the first person narration as if he is talking to the reader. It creates an unusual situation for the reader, however it includes many underlying opinions. Author refers to them as "children" because he thinks that although they are both young adults, they are simple like children in many ways. They sold their most valuable things to buy gifts that they didn't really need to buy in the first place, because they were truly in love. But also, they thought only of the other person and not of themselves when they gave their gifts and that is why the yare called wise as the magi

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