💇🏽‍♀️🔗The True Meaning of Christmas: An Analysis of O. Henry's Story The Gift of the Magi⌚🪮

    "After their audience with the king they set out. And behold, the star that they had seen at its rising preceded them, until it came and stopped over the place where the child was. They were overjoyed at seeing the star, and on entering the house they saw the child with Mary his mother. They prostrated themselves and did him homage. Then they opened their treasures and offered him gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh." -- Matthew 2:9-11

Source: Amazon.com

About the Author

    William Sydney Porter was born on September 11, 1862, in Greensboro, North Carolina. He studied for a short time before clerking in an uncle's pharmacy. At the age of 20, Porter moved to Texas, first working as a rancher and later as a bank teller. In 1887, he married and began to write freelance sketches. A few years later he founded the Rolling Stone, a humorous weekly. When this failed, he became a reporter and columnist on the Houston Post.

    In 1896, Porter was charged for embezzling bank funds, however, it was a result of technical mismanagement. He fled to a reporting job in New Orleans, and then to Honduras. When he received news of his wife's illness, he returned to Texas. After her death, Porter was imprisoned in Columbus, Ohio for three years.

    In 1902, he was released from prison and moved to New York City, the setting for many of his literary works and where he lived for the rest of his life. Writing under the pen name O. Henry, he plotted many short stories, but never published novel-length narratives. He wrote in a dry, humorous style, and frequently used coincidences and surprise endings to underline ironies. Even after his death on June 5, 1910, O. Henry's shorts stories have been collected over the years and remain sources of literary entertainment.

Summary of the Short Story

    Della Dillingham Young has $1.87 to buy a gift for her beloved husband, Jim. With tomorrow being Christmas Day, Della cries on the couch. The narrator tells the reader that the couple are poor and live in a flat with a malfunctioning mailbox, a dead doorbell, a worn red carpet, and a cheap mirror. Outside the window is a "gray cat walking a gray fence in a gray backyard." However, Jim and Della truly love each other.

    Once Della has recovered herself, she goes to the mirror to let down her hair and examine it. The couple has two prized possessions. The first is Della's beautiful, brown, knee-length hair described to be so gorgeous that it would make the Queen of Sheba envious. The second is Jim's gold pocket watch, a family heirloom that would have been the envy of King Solomon. Upon examining her hair, Della ties it up, sheds a tear, and puts on her "old brown jacket" and "old brown hat" to head out into the cold weather. She goes to a hair goods shop run by the stingy Madame Sofronie to whom she sells her hair for twenty dollars.

    Now with $21.87, Della finds Jim the perfect present: an elegant platinum fob chain for his watch. As it costs only $21.00, she buys it. Excited by her gift, Della returns home and tries to curl her now-short hair. She is convinced Jim will disapprove of it, but she did what she had to do to get him a good Christmas gift. When she fixes her hair, she prepares coffee and dinner.

At 7 o'clock, Jim comes home in his worn overcoat and with his gloveless hands. He finds Della waiting by the door and stares fixedly at her, unable to understand that her hair is gone. Della cannot quite understand what his reaction means.

    After a little while, Jim snaps out of it and gives Della her present, explaining that his reaction will make sense when she opens it. Della opens it and cries out in joy, only to burst into tears immediately afterward. Jim has given her the set of fancy combs she has wanted for a long time, only now her hair is too short for her to use them. Jim comforts Della out of her sobs. Once she has recovered, she gives him the fob chain. Jim smiles, and falling back on the couch, reveals that he sold his watch to buy Della's combs. He recommends they put away their presents and have dinner. As they do so, the narrator ends the story by proclaiming Della and Jim to be as wise as the magi who brought gifts to Jesus and invented the art of giving Christmas presents. "They are the magi."

Themes

Love🧑🏻‍❤️‍👩🏽

    The text is the story of a poor, young couple whose love for each other is the most important thing in their lives. So great is their love that they sacrifice their most valuable possessions to buy Christmas gifts for each other. The warm home they make together contrasts with the drabness of their poverty and the dreary world outside. Their love is boundless, although Della worries about how her sacrifice will affect her husband because of how it affects her looks. Regardless, the reader is taught that one only needs love to be happy (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008).

💇🏽‍♀️🔗Sacrifice⌚🪮

    Jim and Della give up their most precious possessions to buy Christmas gifts for each other. The short story is all about sacrifice. Della goes through the process of sacrificing, only to discover that her husband has done the same thing. The narrator assures the reader that in their willingness to give up all they have, they have proven themselves the wisest of all gift-givers (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008).

Wealth💵

    In many ways, O. Henry's Christmas story is about what it means for something to be valuable. Does the value of an object lie in how much it costs? Or are there other things more valuable than money? The couple are very poor and yet it is their love for each other that makes them very rich. It is that love which motivates them to give up the only things of monetary (or personal) value they have to buy presents for each other. Their poverty enables them to appreciate what really matters (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008).

Symbols

Biblical Imagery⛪

    There are three Biblical allusions in the short story.

The first two relate to Jim's and Della's prized possessions. Della's hair is said to make the Queen of Sheba green with envy and Jim's watch would have made King Solomon envious. Both monarchs were famous figures in the Old Testament. In the last paragraph, the narrator compares Jim and Della to the wise men or magi who, per the New Testament, delivered gifts to Jesus on the first Christmas Day.

    All three Biblical figures are royal and rich. The Queen of Sheba and King Solomon were both powerful monarchs well-known for their wealth and grandness. The magi, meanwhile, brought Jesus three expensive gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. The comparison of Jim's and Della's possessions to those of the Biblical figures brings out how precious those two items are to their owners; to Jim and Della they are treasures which they give away. By mentioning the two monarchs and the magi, O. Henry contrasts their riches and Jim and Della's poverty.

    The short story wants the reader to think about what it means to be truly rich. Because they love each other, Jim and Della are as rich as Solomon, the Queen of Sheba, and the magi. In the concluding paragraph, the narrator claims the couple to be just as wise as the magi.

    The Biblical imagery also makes the story like a parable. By invoking the Bible, O. Henry makes The Gift of the Magi nostalgic and moralistic (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008).

Drabness🏚️

    To contrast with the internal richness of Della and Jim's love for each other, O. Henry throws into details to make their external circumstances about as drab and meagre as can be.

    There is the shabby apartment, the cold weather, and the couple's worn clothes. All this imagery creates a contrast between the rich, warm, inner world of love and affection which Della and Jim create, and the gray, ugly, outer world of money and work and miserly, hair-buying business owners. Their love transforms their flat from a particularly drab part of that dreary world into a home (Shmoop Editorial Team, 2008).

The True Meaning of Christmas👼🏿👼🏾👼🏽👼🏻👼🏼

    O. Henry first published The Gift of the Magi in The New York Sunday World on December 10, 1905. It has since been adapted into and parodied in films, television programmes, songs, and plays. Both the plot and twist-ending are well-known and the story itself has been used to teach about dramatic irony. Regardless which adaptation or parody someone is familiar with, The Gift of the Magi shows what Christmas is all about.

    December 25th marks the most wonderful time of the year, but people must remember and live up to the very special lesson Linus Van Pelt told to Charlie Brown. Love is the most precious thing people should give each other, and to do that, they must not save it all for Christmas Day.

References

1. Biography.com Editors. (2014, April 3). William Sydney Porter Biography. Biography. http://www.biography.com/people/william-sydney-porter-9542046
2. Dion, C. (2015, October 30). Don't Save It All for Christmas Day [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdRncshZ4V
3. Henry, O. (1905). Gift of the Magi, The. The New York Sunday World.
4. Melendez, B. (Director). (1965). Charlie Brown Christmas, A [Film]. Melendez Productions.
5. Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). The Gift of the Magi. Shmoop. http://www.shmoop.com/gift-of-the-magi/
6. Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). The Gift of the Magi Summary. Shmoop. http://www.shmoop.com/gift-of-the-magi/summary.html
7. Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). The Gift of the Magi Analysis. Shmoop. http://www.shmoop.com/gift-of-the-magi/symbolism-imagery.html
8. Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). The Gift of the Magi Themes. Shmoop. http://www.shmoop.com/gift-of-the-magi/themes.html

The Rashōmon Effect: An Analysis of Ryūnosuke Akutagawa's Short Story In a Grove🎍

    "Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were." -- Marcel Proust, "In Search of Lost Time: Swann's Way"

    This blog post is dedicated in memory of the Japanese author Ryūnosuke Akutagawa.

    Special thanks to Spanish comic artist Víctor Santos.

Heigo Kobayashi: "A damned web of lies..."

About the Author

    Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, pseudonym Chōkōdō Shujin or Gaki, was a prolific Japanese writer known especially for his stories based on events in the Japanese past and for his stylistic virtuosity.
    Akutagawa was born on March 1, 1892 in Tokyo. As a boy, he was sickly and hypersensitive, but he excelled at school and was a voracious reader. He began his literary career while attending Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo), where he studied English literature from 1913 to 1916.
    In 1915, the publication of Akutagawa's short story Rashōmon led to his introduction to Natsume Sōseki, the outstanding Japanese novelist of the day. With Sōseki's encouragement, Akutagawa began to write a series of stories derived largely from 12th- and 13th-century collections of Japanese tales but retold in the light of modern psychology and in a highly individual style. He ranged wide in his choice of material, drawing inspiration from such disparate sources as China, Japan's 16th-century Christian community in Nagasaki, and European contacts with 19th-century Japan. Many of his stories have a feverish intensity that is well-suited to their often-macabre themes.
    In 1922, he turned toward autobiographical fiction, but Akutagawa's stories of modern life lack the exotic and sometimes lurid glow of the older tales, perhaps accounting for their comparative unpopularity. His last important work, Kappa (1927), although a satiric fable about the titular creature, is written in the mirthless vein of his last period and reflects his depressed state at the time. On July 24, 1927, Akutagawa died by suicide, his death shocking the literary world.
    Today, Akutagawa is one of the most widely translated of all Japanese writers, and many of his stories have been made into films. The 1950 Oscar-winning film Rashōmon, directed by Akira Kurosawa, is based on Akutagawa's story by that title and another story of his, In a Grove.

Summary of In a Grove

    Seven testimonies are given before the High Police Commissioner of Kyōto surrounding the discovery of a murdered man's body in a grove.
    The first account is that of the woodcutter who discovered the man's body in the woods. When asked to describe the body, the woodcutter says that it wears a Kyōto-style headdress and a blue kimono and has a single fatal sword stroke across the chest. He also says that the trampled leaves around the body showed there had been a violent struggle. There were no swords nearby, and not enough room for a horse-only a piece of rope, a comb, and bloodstained bamboo blades.
    A travelling Buddhist priest delivers the second account. He says that he saw the man, who was accompanied by his wife on horseback, on the road, around noon the day before the murder. The woman was wearing a lilac kimono and the man was carrying a sword, a bow, and a black quiver containing twenty arrows.
    The third person to testify is a hōmen. He has captured a notorious bandit named Tajomaru. Tajomaru was injured when thrown from his horse, and he was carrying a bow and a black quiver containing seventeen arrows, which he suspects were stolen from the victim. Tajomaru was not carrying the dead man's sword, but he believes there is enough evidence to convict him of the murder.
    The fourth testimony is from the victim's mother-in-law. The old woman's daughter is a spirited, fun-loving 19-year-old girl named Masago, married to Takejiro Kanazawa, also known as Takehiko, a 26-year-old samurai from Wakasa. Her daughter, she says, has never been with a man other than Takehiko. She begs the police to find her missing daughter and her testimony trails off as she weeps.
    Next, Tajomaru confesses to killing Takehiko, but not Masago. He says that he saw them on the road and upon first seeing Masago, decided that he must have her. He lured Takehiko into the woods with the promise of buried treasure. He then gagged him with bamboo leaves, tied him to a cedar root and calmly brought Masago back. When she saw her husband tied up, she pulled a dagger from her bosom and tried to stab Tajomaru, but, being a skilled bandit as he is, he dodged her attack and raped her. Originally, he had no intention of killing the man, he claims, but after the rape, Masago begged him to either kill her husband or kill himself-she could not live if two men knew her shame. The survivor would be her new husband. Tajomaru, observing proper duelling etiquette, untied Takehiko so they could have a fair swordfight. During the duel, Masago fled, but Tajomaru did not notice. Tajomaru took the man's sword, bow and quiver, as well as the woman's horse, which was simply grazing quietly. He says that he sold the sword before the hōmen captured him.

The Bandit
Tajomaru: "I always knew I'd hang some day. That's my life. You want to kill me? Go ahead."

    Masago then gives her account. According to her, after the rape, Tajomaru fled. Her husband, who wore a lilac kimono at the time and was still tied down, had an indescribable light in his eyes that made her think that he hated her and found her disgusting after her defilement. She no longer wanted to live, but she said she could not leave him alive as he was. He agreed, or so she believed-he could not say anything because his mouth was still stuffed full of leaves-and she plunged her own dagger into his chest. She then unbound Takehiko, and ran off into the forest, whereupon she attempted to kill herself numerous times, she said, but Kwannon, a bodhisattva goddess, must have kept her alive.

The Wife
Masago: "Even the most compassionate gods would condemn me..."

    The seventh and final account comes from Takehiko through a medium. The spirit says that after the rape, Tajomaru persuaded Masago to become his wife; she assented, but then Tajomaru turned pale and cried that he must kill Takehiko. Tajomaru kicked Masago to the ground, and asked Takehiko if he should kill her. Hearing this, Masago shrieked and fled into the forest. Tajomaru then cut Takehiko's bonds and ran away, saying his fate was next. Takehiko grabbed Masago's forgotten dagger and plunged it into his chest. Soon, his spirit leaves his body and retrieves the dagger from his breast, leaving him to sink down into the darkness of space.

The Samurai
Takejiro Kanazawa: "Who was it? Good question, my Lord."

Themes
• Guilt
    Various confessions offered to the High Police Commissioner arise strictly out of guilt. In fact, Tajomaru, Masago, and Takehiko (through the Medium) each confess out of the perception of their own guilt (Johanning & Suduiko 2016).

• Greed
    Greed is the central motivating factor that leads to Takehiko's demise. He takes Masago with him to follow Tajomaru to the grove because of their perceived greed for cheap weapons, but he ends up getting killed (Johanning & Suduiko 2016).

Motif
• Kimonos
    The seemingly small detail of confusing the colours of Masago's and Takehiko's kimonos tells the reader a different story about each narrator's trustworthiness and indeed the trustworthiness of the psyche. One can wonder how so many people who have little reason to lie tell such different stories about whether the kimonos were lilac or blue (Johanning & Suduiko 2016).

In a Grove in Popular Culture

    Ever since Akira Kurosawa's 1950 filmic adaptation of In a Grove, which borrows its setting from Rashōmon, the popularity of contradictory accounts of a single event has been popular. This concept was coined as the Rashōmon Effect. The term is credited to the film, but the effect is also present in Akutagawa's original short story.

Woodcutter: "I don't understand any of those three."

    First published in an essay on the politics of journalism for Theaterwork Magazine in 1982 by Valerie Alia, this term can be found in fiction as well as in real life. It is a useful term for journalists and lawyers studying the nature of truth and truth-telling in journalism.
    In Karl G. Heider's seminal studies in ethnography, he uses the term to account for the subjectivity of perception on recollection - an idea universal enough to find itself in fields as far away from film as physics and philosophy.
    However, the Rashōmon effect is also popular in films, plays, TV series, other short stories, and graphic novels as well. To name a few: Gone Girl, Talvar, Batman: The Animated Series, The Dick Van Dyke Show, Arrested Development, Happy Days, The Simpsons, Star Trek, Tell Me Why, and many others have alluded to the effect.
    In short, any event with multiple parties involved is difficult to summarize because of constant refutations, even in seemingly insignificant details. One may wonder how it could be possible to have such varied accounts of the same incident in which the real evidence cannot even be accounted for (Johanning & Suduiko 2016).

VI. References

1. Akutagawa, R. (1952). Rashomon and Other Stories. New York City, New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation.
2. Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica. (2015, December 31). Akutagawa Ryūnosuke. Britannica. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Akutagawa-Ryunosuke
3. Johanning, C. & Suduiko, A (Eds). (2016, January 13). Rashōmon “In a Grove” Summary and Analysis. Grade Saver. https://www.gradesaver.com/rashomon/study-guide/summary-in-a-grove
4. Kurosawa, A. (Director). (1950). Rashōmon [Film]. Daiei Film.
5. Johanning, C. & Suduiko, A (Eds). (2016, January 13). Rashōmon Symbols, Allegory and Motifs. Grade Saver. https://www.gradesaver.com/rashomon/study-guide/symbols-allegory-motifs
6. Johanning, C. & Suduiko, A (Eds). (2016, January 13). Rashōmon: The Rashōmon Effect. Grade Saver. http://www.gradesaver.com/rashomon/study-guide/the-rashmon-effect
7. Johanning, C. & Suduiko, A (Eds). (2016, January 13). Rashōmon Themes. Grade Saver. https://www.gradesaver.com/rashomon/study-guide/themes
8.  Santos, V. (2012, November 13). Making of Rashomon Cover [Blog post]. Víctor Santos Comics. https://victorsantoscomics.blogspot.com.es/2012/11/blog-post.html
9. Santos, V. (2012, December 28). Rashomon Illustrations (1) [Blog post]. Víctor Santos Comics. https://victorsantoscomics.blogspot.com.es/2012/12/ilustraciones-de-rashomon-1-rashomon.html
10. Santos, V. (2013, January 4). Rashomon Illustrations (2) [Blog post]. Víctor Santos Comics. https://victorsantoscomics.blogspot.com.es/2013/01/blog-post.html
11. Santos, V. (2017). Rashomon: A Commissioner Heigo Kobayashi Case. Dark Horse Comics.