Irony In The Gift Of The Magi

The main characters of both stories are similar by reason of they are poor. Della has a job that does not have a good salary. When she tries to buy a gift for her husband, "everything had cost more than she had expected" (Henry). She cannot think of anything with the money that she has, one dollar and eighty-seven cents. This amount is hard to come up with anything, anything that will be good enough for him. Obviously, her job is not providing her good earning enough to spend. Similarly, Mathilde does not have much money either. The author does not describe about her job as another story, but the reader can know from "she had no clothes, no jewels, nothing", and refuses to visit a rich friend because "she suffered so keenly when she returned home" and "she would weep whole days, with grief, regret, despair, and misery" (Maupassant). The suffering from her house and poorness causes her unhappy. They seem to both be poor and that makes them suffer.

However, the two main characters are different from each other

In "The Gift of the Magi", when Della gives Jim the chain and tells him to show the watch, his answer is "let 's put our Christmas gifts away and keep them a while. They 're too nice to use now" (Henry). Looking back to how they both get the gifts for each other, it is so difficult for them to find something which is perfect for the person they love. After all they have done is for nothing, nobody can tell how hard it is. It is so sentimental for this story. Similarly, "The Necklace" is sentimental too. When Mathilde tells Madame Forestier about the necklace, is also the same time that she knows, that the original was "imitation" and "worth at the very most five hundred francs" (Maupassant). She and her husband have a hard time to find the money so they can force for the necklace to replace the original just because they mistakenly think, that it is a diamond one. Clearly, the tone for both stories is