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Short Story Short Stories

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Dragon, witches, princesses and knights. These are the imaginary friends in so many children 's lives. For young adults, those fairy tale characters give way to darker characters and more realistic situations. However, what do they all have in common? They live in short stories. Two short stories that are interesting are "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry and "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant. Della in "The Gift of the Magi" wants to find Mr. James Dillingham Young, her husband, the best gift for Christmas, but she has just one dollar and eighty-seven cents. Mathilde Loisel in "The Necklace" borrows her friend 's necklace for good-looking for going to the ball at the Ministry. While there are some obvious similarities, both authors approach these stories, specifically with the characters, tone, and point of view, in different ways. The main characters of both stories are similar because they are poor. Della has a job that does not have the 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 does not give her the good earning enough to spend. Similarly, Mathilde does not have much money either. The author does not describe about her job like another story, but the reader can know from "she had no clothes, no

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