? Theshort stories, “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Necklace”, dealwith two women’s struggles to make someone else happy and howfulfilling your own wants can hurt you. The difference betweenthese stories is how when push came to shove, the way thecharacters chose to spend their money. These two interesting and ironic stories revolve around onemain character.
They both try to make their lives or someone else’slife better by using money. In “The Gift of the Magi”, the main character, Delladesperately wants to buy a perfect gift for her husband. Unfortunately, she is poor and cannot afford to buy him a gift. This makes Della very unhappy. Finally, she decides to have herlong, beautiful hair cut off for money. With the money, she buys agolden fob chain for her husband’s most prized possession, whichis a pocket watch.
The ironic thing in this story is that her husbandsold the watch so that he would have money to buy her combs forher hair. They both sacrificed themselves for gifts for each other. On the other hand, in “The Necklace”, the main character, amiddle class woman named Madame Loisel is selfish, greedy, andan uncaring woman. Although she is beautiful, she only caresabout money. In the story, she and her husband are invited to aparty.
She has her husband spend the 400 francs he has saved for agun, on a dress she wants to wear to the ball. She also wantssomething beautiful to go with her dress, so she borrows agorgeous necklace from a friend. Madame Loisel was the hit of the party. At the end of thenight, she discovered she had lost the necklace.
Madame and herhusband take out loans so that they could buy a replacement andspent the next ten years paying it off. Madame was forced to work,which made Madame Loisel’s looks deteriorate. Finally, at the end,we find out the necklace she lost was worthless. So, by reading these two stories, I found out how money cancontrol and change people. Some people can use it for others andsome for themselves.
If you’re not careful, money can backfire inyour face.
