American Literature The moral lesson applying to your life from the short story The Gift Of The Magi

Money or material plays an integral part in our life. No one can survive
without them. However, when I read the short story “The gift of the Magi” of O.
Henry, I realized that love is more important than these things. Being rich does
not mean you can buy love but if you have a real love, you have a fortune. The
story teaches us numerous lessons about love but for me, the most precious
lesson is of all the gifts, unselfish love is the greatest.
In the short story, the author found that of all the gifts, the unselfish love
between Jim and Della is the greatest. And who find out this fact is the Magi.
First, both Jim and Della place the other first and are willing to sacrifice their
most valuable possession for the other, without regret. They want to buy a
special gift on Christmas that pleases the other. However, they didn’t know the
intention of the other. Della cut and sold her beautiful hair to have money to buy
her husband a watch chain. Jim sold his gold watch that handed out from his
grandfather to buy his wife a set of combs, too. They love the other more than
love themselves. Both the gifts are to increase the value of the precious treasure
that the other has. Nevertheless, the irony is both the expensive gifts make the
other treasure worthless. Della’s hair is not long enough to use those combs. Jim
doesn’t have the watch to combine with that chain. Although they are not the
perfect gifts, both realized that those gifts are not the greatest. The greatest gift
is their real love for each other, not for anything.
I like this lesson most because nowadays, most young people love for
money and material. They don’t realize the real value of love. They value
material rather than love. Love is measured by money and material. They
suppose that he much valuable these things are, the much their love is. That is a
wrong notion. They mistake the love of couples for loving themselves. Through
the love between Jim and Della, O. Henry would like to tell us that there is no
place for selfish love. If yes, that relationship will never last long.